Luminous Nightfall
by Chandrakanta
Summary: The Cullens, Denalis, Bella and Charlie receive some books the day that Bella goes to the Cullens for the first time before the infamous game. In addition to SM's books, they also receive four others, each corresponding book from Edward's POV.
1. Arrivals

**1. Arrivals**

After he finished playing Bella's Lullaby to her, Edward planned to invite Bella on a tour of the rest of the house when he heard a car coming up the drive. Carefully, he listened for the thoughts of the occupants. Surprised, he turned to Bella.

"Do you mind meeting more of our family?" he asked her.

"No, of course not," she replied honestly.

"Our extended family, from Alaska, is coming here now," he explained. _I wonder why Alice didn't see this,_ he thought to himself.

Quickly, Carlisle, Esme, Jasper and Alice reappeared in the room to greet their guests. "The Denalis are here?" Carlisle confirmed with Edward.

Edward nodded in response.

"Well, Bella, it looks like you'll be meeting everyone today." Carlisle smiled gently at her.

Bella was nervous, yet also strangely excited. These people were all Edward's family and getting some sort of approval from them was important to her.

"Hello," Carlisle greeted their guests as he exited the house. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Hello, Carlisle," Tanya responded. "Well, it's a little strange. We received a letter the other day telling us that we should come here today. There was no return address or signature, so we don't know who sent it. I assume, by your surprise, that it was not a member of your family?"

"No, it was not one of us," Carlisle replied thoughtfully. "It is strange but you know you are always welcome here. I would like to warn you first, though, before we go inside, Edward's mate is here today."

"His mate?" Tanya questioned, shocked and disappointed. She knew Edward wasn't her mate, but that had never stopped her pursuit of him before. It was different now though. She knew better than to interfere with a vampire's mating bond.

Though disappointed at losing her chance at a fling with him, she was also happy that his loneliness was at an end. She longed to experience it one day herself, as did her sisters. While they had had their fun with numerous vampires and humans through the centuries, they all wanted to have a deeper connection with someone, as they witnessed with Carmen and Eleazar, not to mention all of the mated couples in the Cullen family.

After a millennium of not finding her other half, though, she didn't expect it to ever happen. She reflected on the luck of the Cullen family. Every one of them had found their other half, with Carlisle waiting the longest at less than 300 years. Carlisle continued speaking, interrupting Tanya's internal musing.

"Yes, this is her first day here, meeting all of us. The thing is, though, she's human."

"Human? Is this the girl Edward ran away from a couple months ago?" Tanya asked.

"One and the same," Carlisle confirmed, smiling.

"Does she know?" Kate asked. Everyone understood what she meant by the question.

"Yes."

"Carlisle, the law…" Eleazar said pointedly.

"It's alright, Eleazar," Carlisle soothed, "firstly, we didn't technically tell her anything, although Edward gave her plenty of clues. And Bella has more than proved herself trustworthy. She will not expose us."

Reassured, everyone entered the house. Alice met them in the foyer, a blank look on her face that they all recognized.

"Alice, what do you see?" Carlisle asked.

"Charlie's coming. I don't know why."

"Okay; thank you, Alice." Carlisle turned to the Denalis and explained. "Charlie is Bella's father. He knows of our family, but does not know what we are. To my knowledge, he is as yet unaware of his daughter's relationship with Edward. Please, everyone, act human while I meet with him and see what he wants."

While they waited for Charlie to arrive, Bella was introduced to the Denalis. "So, you're the family Edward ran to my first day here?" she asked.

"He told you that?" Tanya asked curiously.

"He just said that he took off that night and was in Alaska by the next morning. He said he spent two days there with 'some old acquaintances' and also mentioned that your family was the only other one the Cullens found that shared their diet."

"Old acquaintances? Is that all we are to you, Edward?" Tanya teased.

Edward looked embarrassed. "Of course not," he replied. "I was trying to explain to her how she affected me yesterday and I wasn't ready to explain everything about your family to her yet."

"Well, we'll set you straight, Bella. We consider our family to be an extension of the Cullen family—cousins, in a way."

The vampires quieted as they heard a car turn onto the drive. "Do you know why he's coming?" Bella asked Edward. "It's a Sunday. He should be out fishing."

"No, I can't get anything from his thoughts. Your father is very difficult for me to read. Not as bad as you are, but I can definitely see where you get it from."

"What are you talking about, Edward?" Tanya asked.

"I can't hear Bella's thoughts," he explained bluntly.

The Denalis stared at Bella, astounded, though Eleazar nodded to himself. This could explain some of what he'd sensed from her. They'd never heard of anyone that Edward could not hear before.

The vampires listened as Charlie stopped his car, exited and climbed the stairs to the house. He knocked on the door and Carlisle opened it, greeting him warmly. "Good morning, Chief Swan. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Hello, Dr. Cullen. Please, call me Charlie."

"Thank you, Charlie. Please, call me Carlisle, as well."

"Thanks, Carlisle. As I was leaving the house this morning, I found a box with several books and a couple letters on my doorstep. One of the letters was addressed to me and the other is addressed to you. The letter to me essentially said that I should take the books and come to see you and your family here this morning, at this exact time. It's more than a little strange, but I decided there couldn't be any harm to it. I went to the station for a while, found out exactly where you live here, and now, here I am."

"That's very interesting. Let's get this package and letter, then please, come in and make yourself at home. We also have some close friends from Alaska visiting us today."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope I'm not intruding."

"Not at all. You're more than welcome here, Charlie."

Carlisle walked with Charlie back to the cruiser and retrieved the package. It contained eight books and a letter. Together, they walked back and entered the house and Carlisle began introducing everyone to Charlie.

As a cop, Charlie was very observant and he quickly noted all the unusual similarities among them. Though their hair color was different, he noted their eyes and skin tone, both very unusual, yet shared among this family, though they weren't supposed to be actually related to each other. They were also extraordinarily good-looking and they all looked far too young.

Putting aside his observations for the moment, Charlie moved on and spotted Bella sitting on the loveseat next to Edward. "Bella!" he spluttered, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Dad," Bella greeted quietly, fidgeting nervously. She blushed as she remembered Edward asking her to introduce him to Charlie as her boyfriend in the kitchen this morning. Steeling herself, she explained, gesturing to Edward. "This is Edward. He's sort of my boyfriend and he wanted me to meet his family today."

Edward stood smoothly and stepped forward, offering his hand to Charlie, who took it after a moment. "Good morning, sir. I'm glad to meet you."

Charlie nodded, then turned again to Bella. "Your boyfriend, huh? I thought you said you weren't interested in any of the boys in town. When were you planning to let me know about this?"

"Our relationship is still really new. I was planning on telling you soon, I promise," Bella continued, still blushing.

"Hmph," Charlie grunted, turning back to Carlisle and the package. "Well, should we see what this is about," he asked, motioning to the box.

"Yes," Carlisle replied, reaching into the box and retrieving the letter. Opening it up, he read it aloud to the room.

_Hello Cullens, Denalis and Swans,_

_These enclosed books will give you all insight into one possible future for your families. The future has already been changed now that you have received these. It is up to you how much the future will be altered. I advise you to wait on making any major decisions until you finish reading all of the books._

_One set of books are from Bella's point of view and the other set of books are from Edward's point of view. I urge Edward and Bella, at the very least, to keep reading through all of the books, no matter how difficult it becomes._

_Cullens and Denalis, I advise you to share about yourselves with Charlie before you begin. He should be a part of this and he will find out eventually anyway. You can trust him as you trust Bella._

_In order, the books from Bella's point of view are: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn. The books from Edward's point of view are: Midnight Sun, Moonless Night, Eternal Equinox and Beyond Dusk. The books correspond with each other, covering approximately the same time frame. For example, Twilight and Midnight Sun are from the time Bella arrives in Forks until May. New Moon and Moonless Night are from September to March, Eclipse and Eternal Equinox are from April to June, followed by Breaking Dawn and Beyond Dusk, which is from August to January._

_I want to assure you all that, if you stick through to the end, there will be a happy ending for all of you. I hope you will have an even better future now, with the foreknowledge you will soon gain. Good luck!_

For a moment, everyone was quiet, then Esme asked Carlisle, "Who sent these?"

"It doesn't say. The box is unmarked and the letter is unsigned."

"Like the one we received then," Tanya replied.

"So it would seem."

"Well, how should we do this, then?" Alice asked.

"Firstly, I want you and Jasper to find Rosalie and Emmett and get them back here. They should be part of this as much as the rest of us. While you're doing that, we'll explain a few things to Charlie."

Alice nodded, grabbed Jasper's hand, and ran at full vampire speed out the door, dropping the human charade since it would no longer be needed.

Charlie jumped and stared where Alice had been, wide-eyed.

"Charlie, why don't you take a seat," Carlisle suggested in a soothing voice, indicating one of the plush recliners near where Bella and Edward were sitting.

Charlie nodded mutely, stumbling over to the chair and dropping into it. "What was that?" he asked breathlessly.

"Carlisle, why don't you let me?" Bella said and Carlisle nodded.

Bella stood and walked to her father, kneeling before him. "Dad, it's okay. There are some things you need to know, things that will be difficult for you to accept, but I need you to hear me—us—out. Can you do that, please?" Charlie stared at his daughter for a moment, then nodded. She continued, "First, I want you to know that you're safe here. There's nothing to worry about. And, you should know that you and I are the only humans in this house." She waited while that knowledge sunk in.

"If we're the only humans," Charlie mused aloud, "then your boyfriend… Dr. Cullen…" He trailed off and took a deep breath. "What are you then, if you're not human?" he asked, looking at Carlisle.

"Dad, they're vampires," Bella said bluntly as Charlie directed his attention back to her, "but don't worry. They won't hurt us. They hunt animals, not people."

Charlie's face had gotten whiter and whiter as Bella spoke. After a minute, he let out a long breath. "Vampires," he breathed. Then his head shot up and he looked sharply over at Bella. "Your boyfriend is a vampire?" he said sternly.

"Umm… yes?"

"Hmph. I guess I'll be learning more about this in these books, huh?"

"Yes, Charlie," Carlisle interrupted and Charlie flinched slightly. Carlisle smiled at him reassuringly. "From the letter, it sounds like any questions you may have should be answered, as they seem to cover the next two years of Edward and Bella's relationship together. I'm sure it will include plenty of information about the rest of us as well. If you have any more questions when we finish, I will answer them for you."

Charlie nodded, still trying to absorb his new knowledge of his town's favorite doctor and his family.

As Carlisle spoke, Bella retreated back to the loveseat, sitting next to Edward and leaning into his side as he gently took her hand into his own. Edward wanted to wrap his arm around her, but thought it too soon for her father, especially after Bella dropped the bombshell about his species. Perhaps later. He asked Esme, in a voice too quiet for the humans to hear, if she could bring a blanket for Bella to help keep her warm against his side. She nodded minutely and left to retrieve a thick fleece blanket for her.

"Since we'll need to read at human speed with the two of you," Carlisle continued, "we will need you to come here as often as possible to read these books. Spring break is coming up, so that frees up Bella for several days. After that, we may have to take a hiatus until summer break, or restrict reading to evenings and weekends as Bella's homework load allows. Perhaps you could take some vacation time, Charlie?"

"Yeah, okay," Charlie mumbled distractedly. "Yeah, I haven't taken any time off in a while. I could do that," he said, getting his nerves under control. "I'll probably only be able to sit with you for the first one, or two, I guess, since they go together. I know I don't have enough vacation time to sit through all of those. You're right about Bella; she has summer break coming up soon enough, so she has plenty of time, but not me. How about I sit through the first couple and see how it goes. If you've earned my trust enough by then for me to feel comfortable leaving Bella with you for the rest, maybe you can just give me summaries of anything you feel I should know. Sound good?"

"I can agree to that," Carlisle said amiably, "and I hope that, through the course of reading these first two books, you decide that you can trust us with the care of your daughter."

Upon her return, Esme spoke up briefly. "Since the two of you will be here for a while, I want you both to be comfortable. Follow me and I'll show you where the first floor bathroom and the kitchen are. Our refrigerator is fully stocked. Feel free to take a break when you need one and to help yourselves to drinks or snacks."

"Thanks," Bella mumbled in embarrassment, standing from her seat and grasping her father's hand, towing him along as she followed Esme on the brief tour she gave of the ground floor. Once they knew where everything was, they all returned to the living room and settled into their seats.

Just then, Alice and Jasper returned, followed by Rosalie and Emmett.

"I explained everything to them," Alice announced.

Rosalie scowled and sat on the couch, not saying anything to anyone.

"Hey, Bella," Emmett greeted cheerfully. "It's nice to finally meet you. Hey, Chief Swan, how ya doin'? You didn't faint or run screamin', so I guess you're takin' it about as well as Bella did," he chuckled.

"Well, I don't know about taking the news too well, but I'm managing the best I can. It explains a lot though. There was always something odd about your family—like your physical appearance—but I just ignored it all before. Now, I guess you can say that I'm trusting Bella's judgment. She trusts you guys and says you're okay, so I will too, for now. Besides, I'm a cop. It's in my training to accept and deal with weird and dangerous situations. I never dreamed of anything like this, but still…" Charlie replied, smiling hesitantly at Emmett's boisterousness.

"Okay, now that everyone's here, let's begin. As far as reading the books go," Carlisle suggested, "I think we should take turns reading the chapters. Also, according to the letter, it seems that the books correspond to each other. Perhaps we should read a chapter of Bella's book, then a chapter of Edward's, so we can fully understand what's happening from both perspectives. Does anyone disagree?"

"Sounds great! I've always wondered what's going through Eddie's head," Emmett smirked.

"Stop calling me Eddie," Edward growled.

The others laughed as they all settled into the living room. Alice pulled out _Twilight_ and _Midnight Sun_. "I'm starting," she exclaimed.

/=/=/ ~L N~ /=/=/

Disclaimer: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn & Midnight Sun ©2005 – 2008 Stephenie Meyer. Stephenie Meyer owns the characters from her series. I own this story and the character's actions/comments.

A/N: I tried writing this story without the book text, but I'm not happy with the flow. I apologize to those of you who like it better without the story text. If I can ever get it right, I'll post it as an additional story. Right now, though, you'll be getting this with the story text as well as comments. If it gets pulled, I also have the story available at TWCS and AO3.


	2. Twilight – Preface and First Sight

**2. Twilight – Preface and First Sight**

"Preface," Alice read.

**I'd never given much thought to how I would die—though I'd had reason enough in the last few months—**

"Sorry," he mumbled, ashamed, thinking, as always, that he was to blame.

"It's not your fault, Edward. I wouldn't even be alive today if not for you." Bella reached over, placing her hand against his cheek, while he gazed into her eyes and covered her hand with one of his own.

"What are you two muttering about?" Charlie asked.

"Well, Dad," Bella explained, raising her voice to be heard by him, "so far, since I've moved here, my life has been in danger three—"

"Four," Edward interrupted.

Bella turned to him, with an eyebrow raised, silently questioning.

"Yesterday," he whispered to her, ashamed yet again.

"Okay," Bella conceded then explained further to Charlie. "My life has been in danger four times since I moved here. Edward feels bad because he's had to fight his nature to be close to me. He feels guilty because he had thoughts of killing me."

"What!" Charlie exclaimed, both angry and fearful.

"Dad, I'm sure it will be explained in the books. It's his nature to want my blood; he has to fight himself to be close to me. However, you should know there were at least two times my life was in danger from other things, which I'm sure you'll find out about eventually. And the reason I'm alive at all is because Edward saved me from those things."

Charlie's angry expression changed to one of shock and gratitude, though he was still upset. "Thank you," Charlie whispered gratefully. "Thank you for saving my daughter."

"You're welcome," Edward said, surprised yet gratified by Charlie's current acceptance. He winced at the thought of Charlie hearing what went through his mind when he first encountered Bella. No doubt Charlie's acceptance and gratitude would disappear then.

**but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.**

**I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.**

"What?!" Edward growled furiously and Charlie looked over at him nervously.

"Shh, let me read," Alice admonished.

**Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.**

"Bella, your selflessness is one of the things I love most about you, but please, don't let it get you killed," Edward pleaded desperately.

Bella didn't say anything and refused to meet his eyes, knowing that if giving her life could save someone she loved, she would do it.

**I knew that if I'd never gone to Forks, I wouldn't be facing death now. But, terrified as I was, I couldn't bring myself to regret the decision. When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it's not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.**

"That's true," Bella whispered.

"What are you saying?" Edward asked her.

"It means, I don't want to die but, if it's a choice between dying and never knowing you, I'd rather die."

"Please don't say that," Edward begged.

"I can't help how I feel," Bella mumbled.

Charlie gazed quietly at his daughter, surprised by the depth of her feelings already for this boy, this _vampire_—he still had trouble even _thinking_ it, let alone believing it—that he had just now been introduced to for the first time. He'd thought their relationship was still too new for her to have such feelings.

All the vampires considered what she said as well, shocked by the depth of her commitment. It was rare to find human that would commit so strongly to another, especially humans as young as her. For a moment, even Rosalie began to think that maybe she had judged Bella too harshly without bothering to learn anything about her. Although, she thought sneeringly a second later, the girl was probably just being melodramatic. If it actually came down to it, she doubted she was as committed as she claimed.

**The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.**

"Well, that's a cheery beginning," Emmett quipped to break the tension.

"Whatever's happening in this future, we're going to stop it," Edward said fiercely to Bella.

"I know," Bella acknowledged, cuddling closer to him.

Turning the page, Alice continued. "Chapter One: First Sight."

**My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down. It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue. I was wearing my favorite shirt—sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture. My carry-on item was a parka.**

Abruptly, Alice ceased reading and looked over at Bella in horror. "A parka!" she exclaimed, appalled. "Bella, what were you thinking?"

"Umm… I was thinking that I needed something to keep me warm during the winters here," Bella replied, confused.

"Yes, but a parka?"

"Don't mind her, Bella," Edward said. "Alice is insane about all things fashion and shopping. Consider yourself warned."

Alice huffed, determined to educate Bella regarding the proper clothes to wear sometime in the near future, before she continued with her narration.

**In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America. It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old. It was in this town that I'd been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen. That was the year I finally put my foot down; these past three summers, my dad, Charlie, vacationed with me in California for two weeks instead.**

Bella dropped her head, ashamed at her selfishness. "Sorry about that, Dad," she apologized.

"I don't mind, Bells," Charlie said sincerely. "I was happy to do something with you, wherever you wanted to be. Besides, it was nice to be on an actual vacation somewhere else once in a while."

Bella nodded, hoping he was telling her the truth and not just placating her, before waving her hand at Alice to continue.

**It was to Forks that I now exiled myself—an action that I took with great horror. I detested Forks.**

"Why would you come here then?" Rosalie asked, despite herself, speaking the question that many of the others were thinking.

"Keep reading, Alice," Edward chuckled. "I asked Bella the same question, more or less, so it will be answered eventually. Though," he mused thoughtfully, "it probably won't be in this chapter. I didn't speak with her until I came back from Alaska."

Alice nodded and continued.

**I loved Phoenix. I loved the sun and the blistering heat. I loved the vigorous, sprawling city.**

**"Bella," my mom said to me—the last of a thousand times—before I got on the plane. "You don't have to do this."**

**My mom looks like me, except with short hair and laugh lines. I felt a spasm of panic as I stared at her wide, childlike eyes. How could I leave my loving, erratic, harebrained mother to fend for herself?**

"Umm, Bella, who's the mother here?" Emmett asked, laughing boisterously.

"Not Renée, that's for sure," Charlie muttered.

"My mom is a bit irresponsible and…erratic, like it said in the book. I usually had to be the adult and take care of her, not the other way around."

**Of course she had Phil now, so the bills would probably get paid, there would be food in the refrigerator, gas in her car, and someone to call when she got lost, but still…**

Esme interrupted, undisguised disappointment plain in her voice. "She really _is_ irresponsible and erratic, isn't she? Not be offensive to your mother," she remarked diplomatically, "but you'd think that having a child would have taught her some responsibility, rather than laying that burden on you. You probably never had a chance to be an actual child, did you?"

"Not really, but I honestly don't mind," Bella assured her. "I like helping out."

Esme shook her head in disagreement but refrained from speaking her opinion further as Alice continued.

**"I want to go," I lied. I'd always been a bad liar, **

"At least you know you are." Edward grinned. "That makes it easier for me, though. I can usually tell from your face if you're telling me the truth or not."

Bella sighed before smiling slightly at him, upset that she was so easy to read, yet conversely happy that Edward was happy.

**but I'd been saying this lie so frequently lately that it sounded almost convincing now.**

**"Tell Charlie I said hi."**

**"I will."**

**"I'll see you soon," she insisted. "You can come home whenever you want—I'll come right back as soon as you need me."**

**But I could see the sacrifice in her eyes behind the promise.**

**"Don't worry about me," I urged. "It'll be great. I love you, Mom."**

**She hugged me tightly for a minute, and then I got on the plane, and she was gone.**

**It's a four-hour flight from Phoenix to Seattle, another hour in a small plane up to Port Angeles, and then an hour drive back down to Forks. **

Edward shuddered at the slow speed restrictions humans were forced to take.

**Flying doesn't bother me; the hour in the car with Charlie, though, I was a little worried about.**

Charlie frowned at that.

Bella noticed and explained, "I was worried about the awkward silence."

"Oh," he acknowledged. He could understand that.

**Charlie had really been fairly nice about the whole thing. He seemed genuinely pleased that I was coming to live with him for the first time with any degree of permanence. He'd already gotten me registered for high school and was going to help me get a car.**

Rosalie and Edward shuddered at the thought of Bella's truck.

**But it was sure to be awkward with Charlie. Neither of us was what anyone would call verbose, and I didn't know what there was to say regardless. I knew he was more than a little confused by my decision—like my mother before me, I hadn't made a secret of my distaste for Forks.**

**When I landed in Port Angeles, it was raining. I didn't see it as an omen—just unavoidable. I'd already said my goodbyes to the sun.**

**Charlie was waiting for me with the cruiser. This I was expecting, too. Charlie is Police Chief Swan to the good people of Forks. My primary motivation behind buying a car, despite the scarcity of my funds, was that I refused to be driven around town in a car with red and blue lights on top. **

"I suppose you have a point there," Rosalie conceded.

**Nothing slows down traffic like a cop.**

"True," Emmett said mournfully.

Edward and Alice smirked. They never had problems with the cops, thanks to their gifts.

**Charlie gave me an awkward, one-armed hug when I stumbled my way off the plane.**

"Stumbling? Already, Bella?" Emmett managed to get out between his boisterous laughter. The book had barely started! He took that as good sign for entertainment to come.

"Shut it, you." Bella scowled at him, already completely at ease with the burly yet jovial vampire.

**"It's good to see you, Bells," he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me.**

"A long established habit," Charlie explained, smiling fondly at his daughter.

Emmett snickered and Bella pouted. It was immediately obvious that Emmett was joker of the family and she would try not to take any of his teasing too seriously. It wouldn't hurt to let him have his fun, even if it was at her expense. She'd just have to contemplate how she could turn the tables on him sooner or later.

**"You haven't changed much. How's Renée?"**

**"Mom's fine. It's good to see you, too, Dad." I wasn't allowed to call him Charlie to his face.**

"You know, I don't mind if you address me by name," he informed her gently.

"Thanks, Dad," Bella replied, "but I think I'll probably be referring to you as Dad for a while yet."

"Okay, Bells, but I won't be upset if you forget."

**I had only a few bags. **

Alice shook her head at that.

**Most of my Arizona clothes were too permeable for Washington. My mom and I had pooled our resources to supplement my winter wardrobe, but it was still scanty. It all fit easily into the trunk of the cruiser.**

"Oh, Bella," Alice exclaimed, bouncing in her seat, "please let me take you shopping!"

"I don't know," Bella replied cautiously, remembering Edward's earlier warning.

"But, you just thought about how scanty your wardrobe is and I _know_ you haven't been shopping yet. You _need_ this! Please, please, please!"

"How about this… Let's finish these books, then we'll revisit this discussion," Bella bargained.

Alice frowned at that, but then agreed, knowing she could get Bella to cave eventually.

The other Cullens, and the Denalis, shook their heads, knowing firsthand the ordeal Bella would be subjected to as Alice continued her recitation.

**"I found a good car for you, really cheap," he announced when we were strapped in.**

"A good car," Rosalie said incredulously in response to Charlie's comments to Bella. "Is that what you call that ancient, rusted bucket of bolts?"

"Umm…" Charlie trailed off, taken aback at her caustic manner. "It's safer for her than any of the newer cars. You know…if she were to get into a wreck. Besides, I don't want her driving faster than the speed limit, like so many kids do nowadays, and the truck's good for that too."

"Don't I know it," Edward groaned. "Although I will admit that I like something strong enough to protect her if she were to ever get into a collision," he conceded.

**"What kind of car?" I was suspicious of the way he said "good car for you" as opposed to just "good car."**

"Smart thinking, Bella. You're very perceptive and read between the lines of a conversation," Jasper complimented.

"Thanks," Bella replied shyly, smiling at him.

**"Well, it's a truck actually, a Chevy."**

**"Where did you find it?"**

**"Do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?" La Push is the tiny Indian reservation on the coast.**

The Cullens tensed slightly at the mention of the reservation they had a treaty with. As close as she was to Edward, Bella noticed but didn't say anything, hoping their behavior would be explained sometime later. She filed it away to ask about later if nothing was revealed in the books.

**"No."**

**"He used to go fishing with us during the summer," Charlie prompted.**

**That would explain why I didn't remember him. I do a good job of blocking painful, unnecessary things from my memory.**

"Bella," Charlie said in a mock-wounded voice, "was it really that bad?"

"Umm," Bella hedged, "I suppose it could have been worse. It just that fishing is not my favorite thing in the world, Dad."

**"He's in a wheelchair now," Charlie continued when I didn't respond, "so he can't drive anymore, and he offered to sell me his truck cheap."**

**"What year is it?" I could see from his change of expression that this was the question he was hoping I wouldn't ask. "Well, Billy's done a lot of work on the engine—it's only a few years old, really."**

"You should just tell her the truth, sir," Edward offered. "She's tenacious and doesn't give up until she finds out everything she wants to know."

"I know," Charlie said, smiling at Edward, "still, I had to try, at least a little. Is that what happened with you?" he asked. "By the way, Edward," he added, "there's no need to be so formal. You can call me Charlie."

"Thank you, Charlie," Edward said respectfully. "In response to your question; yes. I gave her enough clues to start her questioning until she eventually managed to figure it out. When she told me she knew, I didn't bother denying it. For one, she wouldn't believe any denial on my part, and for another, a part of me wanted her to know. I hated keeping secrets from her and was relieved, in a way, once the truth was out."

**I hoped he didn't think so little of me as to believe I would give up that easily. "When did he buy it?"**

**"He bought it in 1984, I think."**

**"Did he buy it new?"**

**"Well, no. I think it was new in the early sixties—or late fifties at the earliest," he admitted sheepishly.**

**"Ch—Dad, I don't really know anything about cars. I wouldn't be able to fix it if anything went wrong, and I couldn't afford a mechanic…"**

"Rosie could fix it!" Emmett interjected, but stopped quickly at her glare.

"Really?" Bella asked, surprised.

"I _could_," Rosalie said haughtily, "but I'd rather not mess with anything that old. For God's sake, it's not much younger than me!"

Charlie stared at her incredulously, though he guessed he shouldn't be surprised. They _were_ vampires, after all. He wondered how old they really were.

**"Really, Bella, the thing runs great. They don't build them like that anymore."**

**The thing, I thought to myself… it had possibilities—as a nickname, at the very least.**

Emmett chuckled, amused by Bella's thoughts.

**"How cheap is cheap?" After all, that was the part I couldn't compromise on.**

"You know, you don't have to worry about finances," Edward said when Bella began questioning Charlie about costs. "I'm happy to help with anything you…"

"No, Edward," Bella interrupted. "I'm not a charity case and I don't want money spent on me."

"Bella, you know I don't think that. I love you and I have the means to help make your life easier. That's all."

Bella thrilled at his words. It was the first time he'd actually said that he loved her. Still, she stubbornly refused to let him spend money on her. "I know money means next to nothing to you. I can tell by your fancy cars, designer clothes and big mansion. But if you start buying me expensive things, it will start talk."

"But…"

"How about we shelve this conversation for later, after the books, just like with Alice?"

"Fine," Edward huffed, temporarily conceding defeat.

_Whipped, _Emmett teased silently.

"Like you're not," Edward muttered to him, too quietly for Bella or Charlie to hear.

**"Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a homecoming gift." Charlie peeked sideways at me with a hopeful expression.**

**Wow. Free.**

**"You didn't need to do that, Dad. I was going to buy myself a car."**

**"I don't mind. I want you to be happy here." He was looking ahead at the road when he said this. Charlie wasn't comfortable with expressing his emotions out loud. I inherited that from him. So I was looking straight ahead as I responded.**

**"That's really nice, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." No need to add that my being happy in Forks is an impossibility. **

"Well, that thought has certainly changed," Bella interrupted, smiling in contentment. "I'm blissfully happy here now and I never want to leave, not as long as all of you are here. I never would have guessed it a couple months ago."

Esme smiled at her. "We're so happy to have you here with us now, too, dear. You complete our family."

Bella blushed at her compliments, looking down.

**He didn't need to suffer along with me. And I never looked a free truck in the mouth—or engine.**

Edward chuckled. "I love hearing your thoughts."

Bella blushed. "I'm probably going to be tomato red by the end of this book, not even counting the rest," she grumbled. She brightened abruptly. "At least I get to hear your thoughts, too, and, through you, some of the others too, I imagine."

Charlie was confused by her statement but stayed quiet, assuming clarification would come sometime later.

**"Well, now, you're welcome," he mumbled, embarrassed by my thanks.**

**We exchanged a few more comments on the weather, which was wet, and that was pretty much it for conversation. We stared out the windows in silence.**

**It was beautiful, of course; I couldn't deny that. Everything was green: the trees, their trunks covered with moss, their branches hanging with a canopy of it, the ground covered with ferns. Even the air filtered down greenly through the leaves.**

**It was too green—an alien planet.**

"Uh, Bella, green is actually a pretty common color to our planet," Emmett commented.

"Not in Phoenix," she retorted, "and that's where I spent a large portion of my life. There, the most common color is brown. What little green can be found there is sporadic and usually bleached out by the sun."

"Huh, maybe we should go there sometime. When it's overcast, of course," he amended.

"Not too many of those days there," she replied.

"That's what we have Alice for," he observed, grinning.

"Is that all you think I'm good for? Predicting the weather," Alice commented, feigning hurt.

"Nah," Emmett replied nonchalantly, knowing her well enough to recognize her acting and choosing to tease her some more. "You're also good for the finances."

Alice stuck her tongue out at him before continuing.

**Eventually we made it to Charlie's. He still lived in the small, two-bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early days of their marriage. Those were the only kind of days their marriage had—the early ones. There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new—well, new to me—truck. It was a faded red color, with big, rounded fenders and a bulbous cab. To my intense surprise, I loved it. **

"I don't think I'll ever understand how your mind works," Edward commented.

"Don't pick on my truck," Bella warned.

"No promises," he replied.

**I didn't know if it would run, but I could see myself in it. Plus, it was one of those solid iron affairs that never gets damaged—the kind you see at the scene of an accident, paint unscratched, surrounded by the pieces of the foreign car it had destroyed.**

"That is the only redeeming feature of that thing," Edward observed.

"What did I say?" Bella asked.

"I know, but I also told you I wouldn't make any promises," he said, smiling serenely at her.

**"Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!" Now my horrific day tomorrow would be just that much less dreadful. I wouldn't be faced with the choice of either walking two miles in the rain to school or accepting a ride in the Chief's cruiser.**

**"I'm glad you like it," Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.**

**It took only one trip to get all my stuff upstairs. **

"Bella…" Alice started.

"Later, Alice, like I said before," Bella interrupted wearily, knowing already what Alice wanted to talk about. For a psychic, she sure was predictable.

"Yay!" Alice cheered.

"Wait! I'm not agreeing to go shopping with you," Bella protested.

"Not yet, but you will," Alice replied confidently.

The Cullens and Denalis chuckled, shaking their heads.

**I got the west bedroom that faced out over the front yard. The room was familiar; it had been belonged to me since I was born. The wooden floor, the light blue walls, the peaked ceiling, the yellowed lace curtains around the window—these were all a part of my childhood. The only changes Charlie had ever made were switching the crib for a bed and adding a desk as I grew. The desk now held a secondhand computer, with the phone line for the modem stapled along the floor to the nearest phone jack. This was a stipulation from my mother, so that we could stay in touch easily. The rocking chair from my baby days was still in the corner.**

**There was only one small bathroom at the top of the stairs, which I would have to share with Charlie. I was trying not to dwell too much on that fact.**

All of the women shuddered at that. Even though they didn't have much need for a bathroom, aside from the occasional shower, they could easily sympathize with Bella.

**One of the best things about Charlie is he doesn't hover. He left me alone to unpack and get settled, a feat that would have been altogether impossible for my mother. It was nice to be alone, not to have to smile and look pleased; a relief to stare dejectedly out the window at the sheeting rain and let just a few tears escape. **

Esme glided over to Bella and placed a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "I'm sorry it was so hard on you," she consoled.

"It's okay, Esme," Bella assured her. "It was hard at first, I admit, but I'm doing so much better now; there's no comparison. I'd go through a hundred days like that—more even—if the tradeoff is how I feel now."

**I wasn't in the mood to go on a real crying jag. I would save that for bedtime, when I would have to think about the coming morning.**

**Forks High School had a frightening total of only three hundred and fifty-seven—now fifty-eight—students; there were more than seven hundred people in my junior class alone back home. All of the kids here had grown up together—their grandparents had been toddlers together. **

"That is difficult," Carlisle admitted, agreeing with her, "Being outsiders to tight-knit, small communities like this… still, we prefer it over settling into a big city, even though we'd be less likely to be noticed there."

**I would be the new girl from the big city, a curiosity, a freak.**

"You're not a freak, Bella," he admonished.

"I am compared to normal humans," she argued.

Emmett laughed. "She's got a point there, Eddie. You have to admit that she's not what you'd consider normal. I mean that in the best way, Bella," he added.

"Thanks," Bella replied with a grimace, not sure if it was compliment or not, coming from Emmett.

**Maybe, if I looked like a girl from Phoenix should, I could work this to my advantage. But physically, I'd never fit in anywhere. I should be tan, sporty, blond—a volleyball player, or a cheerleader, perhaps—all the things that go with living in the valley of the sun.**

Edward grimaced at the mental image. "I love the way you look," he murmured, pulling Bella closer to him. "I don't want you to be athletic and blond, with tan skin."

"Thanks," she whispered bashfully, a slight blush gracing her cheeks as she leaned into him.

**Instead, I was ivory-skinned, without even the excuse of blue eyes or red hair, despite the constant sunshine. I had always been slender, but soft somehow, obviously not an athlete; I didn't have the necessary hand-eye coordination to play sports without humiliating myself—and harming both myself and anyone else who stood too close.**

Emmett burst out laughing. "I sure hope we get to hear about your gym classes!" he exclaimed excitedly and Edward chuckled, remembering the one he had listened in on.

"No!" Bella moaned, horrified at the idea, resigning herself to the fact that they probably would. She wasn't lucky enough otherwise.

**When I finished putting my clothes in the old pine dresser, I took my bag of bathroom necessities and went to the communal bathroom to clean myself up after the day of travel. I looked at my face in the mirror as I brushed through my tangled, damp hair. Maybe it was the light, but already I looked sallower, unhealthy. My skin could be pretty—it was very clear, almost translucent-looking—but it all depended on color. I had no color here.**

Unhappy with the direction of Bella's thoughts, Edward turned to her and traced patterns on her cheek with a cool finger. "Really?" he murmured softly. "I think you have plenty of color."

Bella blushed and he pulled away, smiling at her, his point made.

"Cheater," she muttered.

**Facing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn't just physically that I'd never fit in. And if I couldn't find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?**

**I didn't relate well to people my age. **

"Maybe that's because you had to mature faster than your peers, because of your mother," Carlisle suggested.

"That could be part of it," Bella agreed, "except it's not just my peers I have trouble relating to."

**Maybe the truth was that I didn't relate well to people, period. **

"But you relate to us?" Alice asked, clarifying.

"Yeah, I think I do," Bella replied after a moment of thought. "I feel more comfortable here, with all of you, than I do with any of my human friends. I've felt more comfortable with any of you than I ever have with anyone in my life," she admitted, "including my mother. I know that probably doesn't make any sense to you, but it's how I feel."

Charlie refused to think about the implications of that announcement but many of the vampires were. Despite their thoughts, and what Bella had said, Edward still remained firm in his resolve to leave her human.

**Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on the exact same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.**

Emmett laughed. "If there is, we, most of us anyway, appreciate it."

"Umm, thanks?" Bella said, not quite sure how to take that.

"Don't mind him," Edward said, "he thinks I take everything too seriously, while he considers everything in life to be a joke."

"Not everything, Eddie, but most things," Emmett corrected, chuckling, as Alice continued her narration.

**But the cause didn't matter. All that mattered was the effect. And tomorrow would be just the beginning.**

**I didn't sleep well that night, even after I was done crying. The constant ****_whoosh_****ing of the rain and wind across the roof wouldn't fade into the background. I pulled the faded old quilt over my head, and later added the pillow, too. But I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight, when the rain finally settled into a quieter drizzle.**

"Sorry you had such trouble," Edward said quietly to Bella as Alice read about her first sleepless night.

"It's okay. It's gotten better; I'm more used to it now," Bella replied. After a moment, she gasped in an almost inaudible whisper, "Oh no!"

"What?" he whispered back.

"Charlie's going to find out you've been in my room at night," she murmured quietly.

"Oh," Edward said and then cringed at the thought of Charlie's reaction, despite the fact that he was physically invulnerable to the human man.

Emmett snickered at his brother's coming predicament while the other vampires smiled. Charlie looked around at everyone with a confused expression, sure that he'd missed something.

**Thick fog was all I could see out my window in the morning, and I could feel the claustrophobia creeping up on me. You could never see the sky here; it was like a cage.**

**Breakfast with Charlie was a quiet event. He wished me good luck at school. I thanked him, knowing his hope was wasted. Good luck tended to avoid me. **

"That's the truth," Edward grumbled sullenly, reluctantly agreeing with her assessment.

"Well, I now think that I kinda have a mixture of bad _and_ good luck," Bella remarked thoughtfully.

Edward looked at her incredulously, the question obvious in his golden eyes.

"Come on, Edward, think about it. It was bad luck to sit next to you when you crave my blood so badly, but it was good luck that it was you instead of some other vampire. You had enough control to stop yourself and leave without hurting me. And, with everything else, I had the bad luck for it to happen, but the good luck that you were there at the right time to save me."

"Hmm… maybe you're right," he conceded thoughtfully, having had similar thoughts before, "but I still think you're a magnet for trouble."

"I'm not arguing with you there."

**Charlie left first, off to the police station that was his wife and family. **

Charlie considered that and realized it was true, in a way. He either spent his time at work, watching sports or fishing. He hadn't spent so much time with his daughter since she moved here as he was now and he found himself enjoying it. He was learning more and more about her, this beautiful young woman that he barely knew. He silently resolved to start finding ways to spend more time with her in the future.

**After he left, I sat at the old square oak table in one of the three unmatching chairs and examined his small kitchen, with its dark paneled walls, bright yellow cabinets, and white linoleum floor. Nothing was changed. My mother had painted the cabinets eighteen years ago in an attempt to bring some sunshine into the house. Over the small fireplace in the adjoining handkerchief-sized family room was a row of pictures. First a wedding picture of Charlie and my mom in Las Vegas, then one of the three of us in the hospital after I was born, taken by a helpful nurse, followed by the procession of my school pictures up to last year's. Those were embarrassing to look at—I would have to see what I could do to get Charlie to put them somewhere else, at least while I was living here.**

"I'm sure you were adorable, Bella," she assured the girl. "You shouldn't be embarrassed."

"Don't worry. I'll make sure you get to see them all," Charlie smirked. "You, Carlisle… and Edward."

"Dad!" Bella gasped, dismayed.

"It's part of having a boyfriend, Bells. Your boyfriend and his parents are privy to all the pictures of you, embarrassing or not."

Edward grinned and Bella hid her face in her hands, beet red.

"This is so not fair," she muttered. Rounding on Edward, she said, "Are there any pictures of you? If you're going to be seeing who knows what awful pictures of me, I should be able to see some of you, although I highly doubt there could be anything that could even remotely be referred to as awful. Are there any from when you were human? I'd settle for different ones of you as vampire, too."

Edward was surprised by Bella's request. "I'm sure there are a few from when I was human, though not many. Photographs weren't exactly common then. Carlisle arranged things to make it seem as though I survived the outbreak that took my parents and led to this," he explained, gesturing to his immortal body, "so that I inherited everything. I've gone through some of it—mostly my mother's jewelry—and I still own my childhood home. There is still a lot I haven't bothered looking through. I'm sure there are some photographs, or possibly even a portrait, in storage.

"As for photos of me as a vampire… there aren't many. We all have photographic memories, so they aren't necessary, and we can't risk them falling into the wrong hands and potentially exposing us to the humans. There are some, though, and I'd be happy to show you what there is."

Turning to Bella, he gripped her hands and gazed into her eyes, truly regretful he couldn't share many visual representations of his past with her. "I'm sorry," he apologized before thinking of a compromise. "There may not be many photos, but perhaps some of my family wouldn't mind sketching a few pictures for you. Carlisle could possibly even sketch a representation of what I looked like as a human for you."

"Could you?" Bella asked, looking at Carlisle hopefully.

"I'll see what I can do," Carlisle said with a gentle smile.

"And I'll see about drawing a few pictures of Edward as I've known him," Esme offered.

"Thank you," Bella replied gratefully, less upset about photos of her being shared after their discussion.

**It was impossible, being in this house, not to realize that Charlie had never gotten over my mom. It made me uncomfortable.**

"Sorry, Bells. I guess you're like me in that respect, huh?" Charlie said, voicing his own thoughts that had been plaguing him for a while as he watched his daughter with Edward.

"What do you mean, Dad?"

"Once you make up your mind about something, you don't change it. And once you decide to love someone, you're not going to change there either."

Looking to Bella, he continued. "You've already given your heart to Edward. I'm not blind; I can see it. You're not that much younger than I was, so I understand it, even if I don't like it. No matter if I approve or not, it's forever for you already. Isn't it? I just hope you'll keep a clear head and won't rush into anything you'll regret later. You need to consider what's in your future with him, especially considering what he is." He gave Edward an apologetic look. "No offense intended, Edward," he added.

"None taken, sir," Edward replied, lapsing back into his more formal address, "I've been thinking of the same thing as well but haven't yet reached a satisfactory conclusion."

Bella was stunned at her father's insight. Though, once she thought about, she realized she shouldn't be surprised. Her father was right; they were alike in this respect, among others. He, out of anyone, should be able to see and understand how she felt.

In the meantime, Edward considered what Charlie had said and wondered if he was right. Was it already too late for Bella, like she had already told him? He had assumed she was being a melodramatic teenager but maybe he was wrong. The Swans seemed to be different from other humans he'd encountered over the years.

When he'd considered his options for the future, he'd never truly considered the possibility that Bella might be as irrevocably changed as he was. If he left someday soon, as he'd been considering, what would happen to her? He'd always assumed that she would eventually recover and move on, but according to Charlie, that likelihood seemed unlikely. He'd have to put some serious consideration into their future, bearing in mind his new knowledge. Considering how much he'd already learned, barely into the first chapter of the first book, he marveled at how much more there was to still learn.

**I didn't want to be too early to school, but I couldn't stay in the house anymore. I donned my jacket—which had the feel of a biohazard suit—**

Alice shuddered and looked at her new friend. "We are _definitely_ going to talk later," she insisted.

Bella just shrugged, capitulating. She did need to expand her wardrobe a little. _One little shopping trip couldn't hurt, could it?_ she thought. _Especially not when it will make her so happy._

**and headed out into the rain.**

**It was just drizzling still, not enough to soak me through immediately as I reached for the house key that was always hidden under the eave by the door, and locked up. The sloshing of my new waterproof boots was unnerving. I missed the normal crunch of gravel as I walked. I couldn't pause and admire my truck again as I wanted; **

Edward and Rosalie grimaced but remained silent. Edward understood the sentimental value of the vehicle better now though. It was a gift from her father. No wonder she was so attached to it. Maybe he could talk Rosalie into fixing it up so it would run better at least. Later, though. Hopefully she would relent sooner or later about Bella and actually be willing to help out.

**I was in a hurry to get out of the misty wet that swirled around my head and clung to my hair under my hood.**

**Inside the truck, it was nice and dry. Either Billy or Charlie had obviously cleaned it up, but the tan upholstered seats still smelled faintly of tobacco, gasoline, and peppermint. The engine started quickly, to my relief, but loudly, roaring to life and then idling at top volume. Well, a truck this old was bound to have a flaw. **

"Just one?" Rosalie muttered.

**The antique radio worked, a plus that I hadn't expected.**

Edward had to speak up. Music was so important to him; he couldn't imagine having a vehicle without a really good sound system. "Worked? That's a rather loose definition, Bella. I've been in your truck and listened to the radio. I suppose it's better than nothing, but I wouldn't exactly say it _works_," he teased.

"Stop picking on the truck," she griped.

Alice shook her head at them and started up again.

**Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not obvious that it was a school; only the sign, which declared it to be the Forks High School, made me stop. It looked like a collection of matching houses, built with maroon-colored bricks. There were so many trees and shrubs I couldn't see its size at first. Where was the feel of the institution? I wondered nostalgically. Where were the chain-link fences, the metal detectors?**

"You actually _want_ those things?" Jasper inquired softly.

"No, not really, but they _were_ familiar. Familiar would have been comforting at that point."

He nodded, understanding that. "Makes a certain amount of sense. Thanks for clarifying."

**I parked in front of the first building, which had a small sign over the door reading FRONT OFFICE. No one else was parked there, so I was sure it was off limits, but I decided I would get directions inside instead of circling around in the rain like an idiot. I stepped unwillingly out of the toasty truck cab and walked down a little stone path lined with dark hedges. I took a deep breath before opening the door.**

**Inside, it was brightly lit, and warmer than I'd hoped. The office was small; a little waiting area with padded folding chairs, orange-flecked commercial carpet, notices and awards cluttering the walls, a big clock ticking loudly. Plants grew everywhere in large plastic pots, as if there wasn't enough greenery outside. The room was cut in half by a long counter, cluttered with wire baskets full of papers and brightly colored flyers taped to its front. There were three desks behind the counter, one of which was manned by a large, red-haired woman wearing glasses. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, which immediately made me feel overdressed.**

**The red-haired woman looked up. "Can I help you?"**

**"I'm Isabella Swan," I informed her, and saw the immediate awareness light her eyes. I was expected, a topic of gossip no doubt. **

"Yes, you were," he agreed, chuckling at her expression.

Bella grimaced. "Figures."

**Daughter of the Chief's flighty ex-wife, come home at last.**

**"Of course," she said. She dug through a precariously stacked pile of documents on her desk till she found the ones she was looking for. "I have your schedule right here, and a map of the school." She brought several sheets to the counter to show me.**

**She went through my classes for me, highlighting the best route to each on the map, and gave me a slip to have each teacher sign, which I was to bring back at the end of the day. She smiled at me and hoped, like Charlie, that I would like it here in Forks. I smiled back as convincingly as I could.**

**When I went back out to my truck, other students were starting to arrive. I drove around the school, following the line of traffic. I was glad to see that most of the cars were older like mine, nothing flashy. At home I'd lived in one of the few lower-income neighborhoods that were included in the Paradise Valley District. It was a common thing to see a new Mercedes or Porsche in the student lot. **

Rosalie sighed. "If only," she said wistfully.

"At least you've been able to take your car since Edward's been picking up Bella," Alice observed.

Rosalie smiled, appeased. "True."

**The nicest car here was a shiny Volvo, and it stood out. **

"And that's the most inconspicuous car we own," Edward added.

**Still, I cut the engine as soon as I was in a spot, so that the thunderous volume wouldn't draw attention to me.**

**I looked at the map in the truck, trying to memorize it now; hopefully I wouldn't have to walk around with it stuck in front of my nose all day. I stuffed everything in my bag, slung the strap over my shoulder, and sucked in a huge breath. I can do this, I lied to myself feebly. No one was going to bite me. **

"Just barely," Edward mumbled guiltily.

"You resisted," Bella reassured him, rubbing his arm comfortingly. "That's all that counts."

"Exactly," Carlisle agreed. "If you won't listen to me, listen to Bella."

"I'll try," Edward promised in an effort to mollify them.

**I finally exhaled and stepped out of the truck.**

**I kept my face pulled back into my hood as I walked to the sidewalk, crowded with teenagers. My plain black jacket didn't stand out, I noticed with relief.**

**Once I got around the cafeteria, building three was easy to spot. A large black "3" was painted on a white square on the east corner. I felt my breathing gradually creeping toward hyperventilation as I approached the door. **

"Hyperventilation?" Emmett said with a smirk. "You _really _don't like to be the center of attention, do you? You do realize you're going to have to get over that if you hang out with us, don't you?"

Bella grimaced but didn't answer him.

**I tried holding my breath as I followed two unisex raincoats through the door.**

**The classroom was small. The people in front of me stopped just inside the door to hang up their coats on a long row of hooks. I copied them. They were two girls, one a porcelain-colored blonde, the other also pale, with light brown hair. At least my skin wouldn't be a standout here.**

"One of the many reasons we blend in a bit better, too," Carlisle commented. "Even though we are still too pale, it's not quite as noticeable as it might be somewhere else that gets more sun."

**I took the slip up to the teacher, a tall, balding man whose desk had a nameplate identifying him as Mr. Mason. He gawked at me when he saw my name—not an encouraging response—and of course I flushed tomato red. But at least he sent me to an empty desk at the back without introducing me to the class. It was harder for my new classmates to stare at me in the back, but somehow, they managed. I kept my eyes down on the reading list the teacher had given me. It was fairly basic: Bronte, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner. I'd already read everything. That was comforting…and boring. **

"We know," the five Cullen 'teens' moaned.

**I wondered if my mom would send me my folder of old essays, or if she would think that was cheating. **

"Maybe not for you," Edward said, "but it would be for us. We can't leave anything behind that might raise questions, which includes reusing old essays. If the humans were to somehow find two identical essays years apart, it could raise too many questions."

"So you study the same things over and over and have to come up with new stuff to write about each time? Ugh. I can't imagine...must be awful," Charlie observed, still refusing to think exactly how old each of the vampires in the room probably were, including his daughter's boyfriend.

**I went through different arguments with her in my head while the teacher droned on.**

**When the bell rang, a nasal buzzing sound, a gangly boy with skin problems and hair black as an oil slick leaned across the aisle to talk to me.**

"Eric Yorkie," the Cullen teens announced.

Unbeknownst to anyone except Jasper, Edward tried to push down his irrational jealousy. This human boy may have been interested in his Bella, but at least he was the least obnoxious of the boys that expressed their desire for her. _And, more importantly, _he reminded himself, _Bella's not interested in him. She turned him down._

**"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?" He looked like the overly helpful, chess club type.**

"Nice description," Emmett laughed.

**"Bella," I corrected. Everyone within a three-seat radius turned to look at me.**

"Subtle," Alice commented sarcastically.

**"Where's your next class?" he asked.**

**I had to check in my bag." Um, Government, with Jefferson, in building six."**

**There was nowhere to look without meeting curious eyes.**

**"I'm headed toward building four, I could show you the way…" Definitely over-helpful. "I'm Eric," he added.**

**I smiled tentatively. "Thanks."**

**We got our jackets and headed out into the rain, which had picked up. I could have sworn several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. I hoped I wasn't getting paranoid.**

"You weren't," Edward remarked.

"Great," Bella groaned. At least the worst is past now, she reminded herself, trying to cheer herself up.

**"So, this is a lot different than Phoenix, huh?" he asked.**

**"Very."**

**"It doesn't rain much there, does it?"**

**"Three or four times a year."**

"About the exact opposite of here, then," Emmett observed, trying to imagine it.

**"Wow, what must that be like?" he wondered.**

**"Sunny," I told him.**

**"You don't look very tan."**

**"My mother is part albino."**

"That wasn't a very good joke, Bella," Emmett said. "Your thoughts are much more amusing."

"Thanks, Emmett," Bella said, rolling her eyes, trying not to blush.

**He studied my face apprehensively, and I sighed. It looked like clouds and a sense of humor didn't mix. **

"You know, if you need a few lessons on humor and joking," Emmett observed, "I'm more than happy to help. All you have to do is ask, little sister."

"Thanks," Bella said gratefully, though more for him calling her his sister than for his offer.

**A few months of this and I'd forget how to use sarcasm.**

**We walked back around the cafeteria, to the south buildings by the gym. Eric walked me right to the door, though it was clearly marked.**

**"Well, good luck," he said as I touched the handle. "Maybe we'll have some other classes together." He sounded hopeful.**

**I smiled at him vaguely and went inside.**

**The rest of the morning passed in about the same fashion. My Trigonometry teacher, Mr. Varner, who I would have hated anyway just because of the subject he taught, was the only one who made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself.**

"Don't worry. We all hate him," Edward said and the others nodded in agreement.

**I stammered, blushed, and tripped over my own boots on the way to my seat.**

Emmett laughed.

**After two classes, I started to recognize several of the faces in each class. There was always someone braver than the others who would introduce themselves and ask me questions about how I was liking Forks. I tried to be diplomatic, but mostly I just lied a lot. **

"In other words, no one believed you," Edward remarked. When Bella looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he added, "You already admitted to being a bad liar, Bella."

She nodded thoughtfully. "You're probably right, except I'm mostly dealing with unobservant self-centered teenagers," she pointed out.

Edward considered that, knowing the minds of the average teenager, especially the majority of minds in Forks High School, and acknowledged that she was undoubtedly right.

**At least I never needed the map.**

**One girl sat next to me in both Trig and Spanish, and she walked with me to the cafeteria for lunch. She was tiny, several inches shorter than my five feet four inches, but her wildly curly dark hair made up a lot of the difference between our heights. **

"Jessica Stanley," Edward growled and Bella looked at him, surprised by his dislike of Jessica. He always spoke so politely to her at school, even though she could tell he'd rather she stayed away from him.

**I couldn't remember her name, so I smiled and nodded as she prattled about teachers and classes. I didn't try to keep up.**

**We sat at the end of a full table with several of her friends, who she introduced to me. I forgot all their names as soon as she spoke them. They seemed impressed by her bravery in speaking to me. The boy from English, Eric, waved at me from across the room.**

**It was there, sitting in the lunchroom, trying to make conversation with seven curious strangers, that I first saw them.**

"And now we enter the story," Emmett said in anticipation, rubbing his hands together.

**They were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, as far away from where I sat as possible in the long room. There were five of them. They weren't talking, and they weren't eating, though they each had a tray of untouched food in front of them. **

"You noticed all of that at a glance, from across the cafeteria, no less?" Carlisle observed, riveted.

"Yeah," Bella confirmed, embarrassed.

"Amazing. As observant as you are, I'm sure you would have figured us out eventually, even without everything Edward did."

"Of course, he certainly didn't help," Rosalie said caustically.

**They weren't gawking at me, unlike most of the other students, so it was safe to stare at them without fear of meeting an excessively interested pair of eyes. But it was none of these things that caught, and held, my attention.**

**They didn't look anything alike. Of the three boys, one was big—muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. **

"Me," Emmett observed unnecessarily.

"Thanks, Emmett," Edward said sarcastically. "I don't think the rest of us could have figured that one out on our own."

**Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. **

"Jasper," Emmett commented again, trying to annoy Edward.

**The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. **

"Less bulky," Emmett sniggered and Edward glared at him.

**He was more boyish than the others, **

"Boyish?" Edward asked after Bella's next descriptive comment, looking down at her.

"I said _more_ boyish," Bella explained, "and it's true. Physically, how much younger than them are you?"

"A few years," Edward replied. "Emmett was twenty and Jasper nineteen when they were changed."

"See?" Bella said, her point made.

"And how old were you?" Charlie asked curiously, looking at Edward.

"I was seventeen, sir," Edward replied.

"So young," Charlie observed sadly. Edward had been Bella's age when his human life ended. They were all young and whatever had happened to change them to vampires was no doubt a tragic story, but it was somehow a little worse knowing that someone who had barely had a chance to live had their life—a normal life, anyway—cut short like that.

"It's okay, Charlie," Edward reassured him, getting the gist of his thoughts. "With the exception of Alice and Jasper, Carlisle changed all of us and he only changed us if there was no other hope. I would've died within hours of when Carlisle changed me if he had not done so."

"Oh," Charlie said awkwardly, not knowing what more to say, silently indicating to Alice to read more.

**who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students.**

**The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. **

"Good description, huh, Babe?" Emmett whispered to his mate, nudging her playfully. She smiled at him, liking Bella a bit more now after hearing the description.

**The short girl was pixie like, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction.**

"Short," Alice grumbled. "Everyone has to comment on my height. I'm just right. The rest of you are just too tall."

"Sorry, Alice," Bella apologized.

"That's alright, Bella. You can make it up to me by letting me take you shopping!"

"Fine," Bella groaned. "I'll let you take me on _one_ shopping trip."

"Yay!" Alice cheered, bouncing in her seat happily.

"On one condition," Bella added and Alice waited. "Edward has to come with."

"What?" Edward complained.

"You warned me about her, so you have to go along and protect me from her if she gets out of hand."

Edward hesitated, then agreed reluctantly. "Fine."

"Alice?" Bella asked.

"Agreed," Alice said, smiling in anticipation, already planning in her head.

Edward grimaced at her thoughts and the ordeal he and Bella would be subjected to. He just hoped he could rein Alice in from subjecting Bella to too much. _At least we'll be together,_ he thought, consoling himself.

**And yet, they were all exactly alike. Every one of them was chalky pale, the palest of all the students living in this sunless town. Paler than me, the albino. **

"Ha," Emmett chortled. "That albino comment is a lot funnier than your earlier one, Bells."

**They all had very dark eyes despite the range in hair tones. They also had dark shadows under those eyes—purplish, bruise-like shadows. **

"How did you see all that from such a distance away?" Carlisle mused. "That should have been almost impossible for a human. You must have exceptional eyesight."

"You even noticed our eye color," Jasper added. "Humans never notice that. They never look long enough to notice those details. Their instincts tell them to maintain their distance, which usually includes details of our features. Not you, though. You're a very unusual human, Bella Swan."

Bella looked down, embarrassed by all the attention she was getting.

**As if they were all suffering from a sleepless night, **

"You could say that," the vampires chuckled, to Charlie's confusion.

**or almost done recovering from a broken nose. Though their noses, all their features, were straight, perfect, angular.**

**But all this is not why I couldn't look away.**

**I stared because their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine. Or painted by an old master as the face of an angel. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful—maybe the perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy.**

Rosalie frowned at being compared to Edward.

**They were all looking away—away from each other, away from the other students, away from anything in particular as far as I could tell. As I watched, the small girl rose with her tray—unopened soda, unbitten apple—**

"You even noticed that Alice didn't eat," Jasper observed. "I think Carlisle is right. You would have figured us out sooner or later, no matter what Edward did."

**and walked away with a quick, graceful lope that belonged on a runway. I watched, amazed at her lithe dancer's step, till she dumped her tray and glided through the back door, faster than I would have thought possible. My eyes darted back to the others, who sat unchanging.**

**"Who are they?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class, whose name I'd forgotten.**

**As she looked up to see who I meant—though already knowing, probably, from my tone—suddenly he looked at her, the thinner one, the boyish one, the youngest, perhaps. **

"In one way at least," Edward commented.

**He looked at my neighbor for just a fraction of a second, and then his dark eyes flickered to mine.**

**He looked away quickly, more quickly than I could, though in a flush of embarrassment I dropped my eyes at once. In that brief flash of a glance, his face held nothing of interest—it was as if she had called his name, and he'd looked up in involuntary response, already having decided not to answer.**

"I don't think I'll ever get used to exactly how much you notice," Edward commented.

"I was right?"

"Yes, you were. Jessica thought my name, so I looked up automatically."

"Wait," Charlie choked. "You hear thoughts!"

"Yes, I do. I'm sure my ability will be explained soon, Charlie."

Charlie shook his head, partly wishing he could still be ignorant about these things, yet also glad to be more involved with his daughter. If knowing more about the supernatural meant he could be closer to his daughter, he supposed it was a small enough price to pay.

**My neighbor giggled in embarrassment, looking at the table like I did.**

**"That's Edward and Emmett Cullen, and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen; they all live together with Dr. Cullen and his wife." She said this under her breath.**

**I glanced sideways at the beautiful boy, who was looking at his tray now, picking a bagel to pieces with long, pale fingers. His mouth was moving very quickly, his perfect lips barely opening. The other three still looked away, and yet I felt he was speaking quietly to them.**

"What were you saying?" Bella asked Edward.

"You're assuming you're right, then?" he responded, smiling.

Bella just looked at him, arching an eyebrow, waiting.

"I'm sure it will be included in my book. Just be patient, love. All will soon be revealed."

Bella huffed then nodded reluctantly.

**Strange, unpopular names, I thought. The kinds of names grandparents had. But maybe that was in vogue here—small town names? I finally remembered that my neighbor was called Jessica, a perfectly common name. There were two girls named Jessica in my History class back home.**

**"They are…very nice-looking." I struggled with the conspicuous understatement.**

**"Yes!" Jessica agreed with another giggle. "They're all together though—Emmett and Rosalie, and Jasper and Alice, I mean. And they live together." Her voice held all the shock and condemnation of the small town, I thought critically. But, if I was being honest, I had to admit that even in Phoenix, it would cause gossip.**

"Is that the best they can come up with?" Emmett asked condescendingly. "You'd think after being here for two years they could come up with something better than that."

**"Which ones are the Cullens?" I asked. "They don't look related…"**

**"Oh, they're not. Dr. Cullen is really young, in his twenties or early thirties. They're all adopted. The Hales are brother and sister, twins—the blondes—and they're foster children."**

**"They look a little old for foster children."**

"Just a little," Jasper chuckled. "After all, I'm only one-hundred and sixty…"

Charlie just stared at the apparently young man before him, dumbfounded, yet having a part of one of his internal questions now answered.

**"They are now, Jasper and Rosalie are both eighteen, but they've been with Mrs. Cullen since they were eight. She's their aunt or something like that."**

**"That's really kind of nice—for them to take care of all those kids like that, when they're so young and everything."**

**"I guess so," Jessica admitted reluctantly, and I got the impression that she didn't like the doctor and his wife for some reason. With the glances she was throwing at their adopted children, I would presume the reason was jealousy. **

"You're right again," Edward stated.

**"I think that Mrs. Cullen can't have any kids, though," she added, as if that lessened their kindness.**

Esme smiled at Bella's defense of her, even though she didn't know her yet. "Thank you, dear. That's very kind of you," she remarked, her eyes betraying her sorrow at the loss of her child and the ability to ever have any more of her own, though she had reconciled herself to it long ago, unlike Rosalie. She was truly happy now and wouldn't give up her existence with her husband and 'children' for anything, not unless she could still keep her current family with her.

**Throughout all this conversation, my eyes flickered again and again to the table where the strange family sat. They continued to look at the walls and not eat.**

**"Have they always lived in Forks?" I asked. Surely I would have noticed them on one of my summers here.**

"I'm sure you would have," Carlisle chuckled, still marveling over her observations.

**"No," she said in a voice that implied it should be obvious, even to a new arrival like me. "They just moved down two years ago from somewhere in Alaska."**

**I felt a surge of pity, and relief. Pity because, as beautiful as they were, they were outsiders, clearly not accepted. Relief that I wasn't the only newcomer here, and certainly not the most interesting by any standard.**

**As I examined them, the youngest, one of the Cullens, looked up and met my gaze, this time with evident curiosity in his expression. As I looked swiftly away, it seemed to me that his glance held some kind of unmet expectation.**

"Trying to read me?" Bella queried.

"Yes," Edward admitted. "I couldn't understand it. Nothing like that had ever happened before. I could see you, I could hear your voice, I could read the expressions on your face, but where your thoughts should be… nothing, just a blank void. I don't think I'll ever get used to it."

Bella nodded, glad to have these moments elucidated, motioning Alice to proceed.

**"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I asked. I peeked at him from the corner of my eye, and he was still staring at me, but not gawking like the other students had today—he had a slightly frustrated expression. I looked down again.**

**"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." **

"Well, he never used to," Emmett remarked. "You are the first girl _ever_ to get his notice. With all the girls, _and_ vampires," he added with a sly glance at Tanya as she scowled back at him, "that have tried to get him, you manage it without any effort."

Both Edward and Bella looked embarrassed by that while Rosalie glowered for a reason currently known only to Edward.

**She sniffed, a clear case of sour grapes. I wondered when he'd turned her down.**

"Thankfully, I never had to, although maybe it would have been easier. Instead, I just had to endure her fantasies. She never could summon enough nerve to speak to me aloud."

**I bit my lip to hide my smile. Then I glanced at him again. His face was turned away, but I thought his cheek appeared lifted, as if he were smiling, too.**

**After a few more minutes, the four of them left the table together. They all were noticeably graceful—even the big, brawny one. It was unsettling to watch. The one named Edward didn't look at me again.**

"Sounds like love at first sight," Alice observed happily.

Esme smiled thankfully and Bella blushed, again.

"Can that actually happen, though?" Bella asked skeptically. "Love at first sight, I mean. Actual love? I never really believed it possible before. Attraction, yes, but not actual love."

"I don't know how common it is with humans," Carlisle commented, "having never actually observed it with them before, but it is quite common for our kind."

"Really?" Bella asked, fascinated.

"Yes. For our kind—vampires—with every mated pair I've ever encountered, the bond was formed the first time they made eye contact and only increases in strength and intensity once physical contact is made and the longer they're together. The bond is also always reciprocal—two-way—probably due to the fact that vampires have only ever been known to fall in love once in their existence. Once it happens, it's a permanent change.

"Most of us in my family have encountered our mate while they were still human. The bond has just been allowed to solidify and become stronger in your case, while you are still human. I know now what I felt when I first met Esme, though I had no idea what it was at the time. I was only with her briefly before we were separated and the bond had not had time to become strong. I believe that may be one of the reasons that led to my changing Edward when I did. Though I didn't realize it then, I was separated from my mate and my loneliness was increased. It was only by God's providence that I found her again, before it was too late."

"You believe in God?" Bella asked curiously, a curiosity shared silently by her father.

Carlisle smiled gently at her. "Yes, I do. Despite the difficult life I've been given and all the hardships I and my family have endured, I've never lost my faith in God or my hope that we can still earn a place in heaven when our current existence comes to end. This belief is not often shared by others, though. I'm afraid I'm in a minority."

Bella nodded, intrigued. It seemed strange, especially after popular literature and films, to hear a vampire speak of God, heaven and faith in such a way, though he was certainly entitled to it. She had never really examined her beliefs in such things, though she supposed she should, now more than ever.

**I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I'd been sitting alone. I was anxious not to be late for class on my first day. One of my new acquaintances, who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela, had Biology II with me the next hour. We walked to class together in silence. She was shy, too.**

**When we entered the classroom, Angela went to sit at a black-topped lab table exactly like the ones I was used to. She already had a neighbor. In fact, all the tables were filled but one. Next to the center aisle, I recognized Edward Cullen by his unusual hair, sitting next to that single open seat.**

Edward tensed at the memory of that first moment he was inundated with her scent. Ironically, to calm himself, he pulled her closer to him and buried his nose into her hair, inhaling that punishing scent deeply into his lungs, almost savoring the fire in his throat that told him she was alive and human.

"Here it comes," he muttered.

Bella tightened her grip on him, instinctively knowing that he needed the close contact from her right now.

**As I walked down the aisle to introduce myself to the teacher and get my slip signed, I was watching him surreptitiously. Just as I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat. He stared at me again, meeting my eyes with the strangest expression on his face—it was hostile, furious.**

Charlie raised his eyebrow at that but refrained from speaking, sure it would all be explained in due course.

**I looked away quickly, shocked, going red again. I stumbled over a book in the walkway and had to catch myself on the edge of a table. The girl sitting there giggled.**

Emmett wanted to laugh too, but reined it in. Now wasn't the time.

**I'd noticed that his eyes were black—coal black.**

"What does that mean?" he asked, noticing that Edward's eyes were a bright honey color now.

"Our eyes change color based on our thirst level or emotions," Carlisle explained. "The lighter gold they are the least thirsty we are. It usually means we've just recently hunted. The darker they get, the thirstier we are."

"Oh," Charlie said faintly, considering Edward's black eyes and what that meant. He shuddered.

"The dark eyes can also reflect a powerful emotion," Carlisle continued, "such as lust or fury. In this instance, though, it was bloodlust."

**Mr. Banner signed my slip and handed me a book with no nonsense about introductions. I could tell we were going to get along. Of course, he had no choice but to send me to the one open seat in the middle of the room. I kept my eyes down as I went to sit by him, bewildered by the antagonistic stare he'd given me.**

Thinking he already knew what Bella had felt then, Edward was shocked as he listened to the encounter from Bella's perspective. "Bewildered?" he blurted. "You weren't afraid?"

"No."

"Your instincts are definitely backward," he commented, shaking his head.

**I didn't look up as I set my book on the table and took my seat, but I saw his posture change from the corner of my eye. He was leaning away from me, sitting on the extreme edge of his chair and averting his face like he smelled something bad. **

"Or something good," Edward declared solemnly.

Charlie shuddered again at the implications of that statement.

**Inconspicuously, I sniffed my hair. It smelled like strawberries, the scent of my favorite shampoo. It seemed an innocent enough odor. I let my hair fall over my right shoulder, making a dark curtain between us, **

"Which really didn't help my control any," Edward remarked.

"Sorry," Bella apologized.

"It's not your fault," Edward soothed. "You didn't know."

**and tried to pay attention to the teacher.**

**Unfortunately the lecture was on cellular anatomy, something I'd already studied. I took notes carefully anyway, always looking down.**

**I couldn't stop myself from peeking occasionally through the screen of my hair at the strange boy next to me. During the whole class, he never relaxed his stiff position on the edge of his chair, sitting as far from me as possible. I could see his hand on his left leg was clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin. This, too, he never relaxed. He had the long sleeves of his white shirt pushed up to his elbows, and his forearm was surprisingly hard and muscular beneath his light skin. He wasn't nearly as slight as he'd looked next to his burly brother.**

"Everyone looks slight next to me," Emmett interjected, flexing his muscles, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere, at least a little.

**The class seemed to drag on longer than the others. Was it because the day was finally coming to a close, or because I was waiting for his tight fist to loosen? It never did; he continued to sit so still it looked like he wasn't breathing. **

Edward smiled as he realized just how much Bella continued to notice about him, even down to the fact that he wasn't breathing, during the tense situation where he had previously believed she was terrified of him, as she should have been. "Of course you noticed that," he commented, squeezing her hand gently with one of his own.

"You don't have to breathe?" Charlie asked, stunned.

"No, our bodies don't require the oxygen, but we rely on our sense of smell so much we don't like to forgo breathing unless it's absolutely necessary. On this day, it was essential. Not breathing throughout the class was the only way I was able to maintain any control that first day."

**What was wrong with him? Was this his normal behavior? I questioned my judgment on Jessica's bitterness at lunch today. Maybe she was not as resentful as I'd thought.**

**It couldn't have anything to do with me. He didn't know me from Eve.**

**I peeked up at him one more time, and regretted it. He was glaring down at me again, his black eyes full of revulsion. **

Edward deeply regretted his behavior that first day, now more than ever after hearing it detailed through Bella's eyes, listening to her internal questions. Aside from fleeing the classroom earlier than he did, he didn't know how it could've gone better, not after being surprised by her scent the way he had been. Still, he fully understood Charlie's furious expression as Alice read about Edward glaring at Bella and he remembered his own unfair thoughts at the time.

"Why are you glaring at her?" Charlie said angrily. "It's not her fault."

"I know," Edward mumbled, ashamed, eyes downcast, "I don't know why I blamed her that day. Maybe as some sort of defense mechanism, just to help get through the class. I knew all along it was my fault, not hers."

**As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind.**

Edward was eager to know if this was an indication of some kind of 'normal' response from her or yet another misinterpretation on his part. "Did you feel fear then?" he asked curiously.

"Not really; I was still more bewildered than anything, maybe starting to get a little angry. I was wondering how you could hate me so much when you didn't even know me."

"Sorry," he apologized.

"We've been through this, Edward. I forgave you a long time ago; it's time to forgive yourself and move on. Besides, you resisted your most basic instincts. That's the important thing."

He nodded; that was the most important thing but he wasn't quite ready to forgive himself for his behavior. He didn't know if he ever would. He could at least set it aside, focusing on the present and future, though, whatever the future may hold.

**At that moment, the bell rang loudly, making me jump, and Edward Cullen was out of his seat. Fluidly he rose—he was much taller than I'd thought—his back to me, and he was out the door before anyone else was out of their seat.**

Eleazar shook his head in contemplation. If Bella Swan was what he thought she was, Edward's resistance was astounding, never mind his current proximity to her. He'd never heard the like before. Still, he wanted to hear of this encounter from Edward's perspective before he came to any final conclusions.

**I sat frozen in my seat, staring blankly after him. He was so mean. It wasn't fair. I began gathering up my things slowly, trying to block the anger that filled me, for fear my eyes would tear up. For some reason, my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts. I usually cried when I was angry, a humiliating tendency.**

Despite Bella's earlier explanation, Edward's brow furrowed in confusion as Alice read of Bella's reaction after he left. "You were angry, not scared?" he verified.

"Yeah," Bella replied with a single nod.

He just shook his head at that. _Would she ever have a normal reaction?_ he wondered silently, though a large part of him was glad that she didn't react normally.

**"Aren't you Isabella Swan?" a male voice asked.**

**I looked up to see a cute, baby-faced boy, his pale blond hair carefully gelled into orderly spikes, smiling at me in a friendly way. **

"Mike Newton," Edward growled resentfully, still unused to the volatile emotions coursing through his body at the mention of the teenager. His siblings smirked at his obvious jealousy, something they were used to dealing with but still very unused to seeing him feel.

**He obviously didn't think I smelled bad.**

**"Bella," I corrected him, with a smile.**

**"I'm Mike."**

**"Hi, Mike."**

**"Do you need any help finding your next class?"**

**"I'm headed to the gym, actually. I think I can find it."**

**"That's my next class, too." He seemed thrilled, though it wasn't that big of a coincidence in a school this small.**

**We walked to class together; he was a chatterer—he supplied most of the conversation, which made it easy for me. He'd lived in California till he was ten, so he knew how I felt about the sun. It turned out he was in my English class also. He was the nicest person I'd met today.**

"Hmph," Edward grumbled. "What about Angela?" he asked. "She's much nicer than Newton."

"Yeah, she is, but she didn't really make much of an impression that first day. I guess that's a downside of being quiet and shy," Bella observed thoughtfully.

**But as we were entering the gym, he asked, "So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or what? I've never seen him act like that."**

**I cringed. So I wasn't the only one who had noticed. And, apparently, that wasn't Edward Cullen's usual behavior. I decided to play dumb.**

**"Was that the boy I sat next to in Biology?" I asked artlessly.**

**"Yes," he said. "He looked like he was in pain or something."**

**"I don't know," I responded. "I never spoke to him."**

**"He's a weird guy." Mike lingered by me instead of heading to the dressing room. "If I were lucky enough to sit by you, I would have talked to you."**

Edward continued to glower angrily during Mike's conversation with Bella, still trying to remind himself that she was uninterested in him as anything more than a casual friend. It was still very difficult. He hoped this jealousy would get easier to deal with soon. At Mike's parting comment, he muttered sourly, "Of course you would."

**I smiled at him before walking through the girls' locker room door. He was friendly and clearly admiring. But it wasn't enough to ease my irritation.**

**The Gym teacher, Coach Clapp, found me a uniform but didn't make me dress down for today's class. At home, only two years of P.E. were required. Here, P.E. was mandatory all four years. Forks was literally my personal hell on Earth.**

"Ah, Bella, it's not that bad," Emmett laughed, grinning widely.

Bella just glared at him, holding back any comments that might encourage him further.

**I watched four volleyball games running simultaneously. Remembering how many injuries I had sustained—and inflicted—playing volleyball, I felt faintly nauseated.**

"I can't wait," Emmett chortled.

**The final bell rang at last. I walked slowly to the office to return my paperwork. The rain had drifted away, but the wind was strong, and colder. I wrapped my arms around myself.**

**When I walked into the warm office, I almost turned around and walked back out.**

**Edward Cullen stood at the desk in front of me. I recognized again that tousled bronze hair. He didn't appear to notice the sound of my entrance. I stood pressed against the back wall, waiting for the receptionist to be free.**

**He was arguing with her in a low, attractive voice. I quickly picked up the gist of the argument. He was trying to trade from sixth-hour Biology to another time—any other time.**

"You tried to change your schedule?" Charlie asked.

"Yes," Edward confirmed. "I thought, at first, if I could just avoid her, avoid her scent, I…she…_we_ would be okay. The last thing I wanted was to lose control and hurt her, for both our sakes, even though I didn't know her then. Her scent was so…overpowering that I felt avoidance was the only way."

Charlie nodded, deep in thought.

**I just couldn't believe that this was about me. It had to be something else, something that happened before I entered the Biology room. The look on his face must have been about another aggravation entirely. It was impossible that this stranger could take such a sudden, intense dislike to me.**

**The door opened again, and the cold wind suddenly gusted through the room, rustling the papers on the desk, swirling my hair around my face. The girl who came in merely stepped to the desk, placed a note in the wire basket, and walked out again. But Edward Cullen's back stiffened, and he turned slowly to glare at me—his face was absurdly handsome—with piercing, hate-filled eyes. For an instant, I felt a thrill of genuine fear, raising the hair on my arms. **

Everyone tensed, the vampires understanding how close Edward had been to losing control then. Shrugging aside his guilt and regret for his behavior, Edward looked down at the girl he held.

"With everything that happened, that's the only time you felt fear," he complained, exasperated. The others chuckled at Edward, though they were stunned by Bella's abnormal reactions as well. Carlisle believed he understood why she reacted the way she did, though he'd wait until he heard more about their early interactions before drawing any concrete conclusions.

**The look only lasted a second, but it chilled me more than the freezing wind. He turned back to the receptionist.**

**"Never mind, then," he said hastily in a voice like velvet. "I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help." And he turned on his heel without another look at me, and disappeared out the door.**

**I went meekly to the desk, my face white for once instead of red, and handed her the signed slip.**

**"How did your first day go, dear?" the receptionist asked maternally.**

**"Fine," I lied, my voice weak. She didn't look convinced.**

"That's because you're a terrible liar," Edward noted.

**When I got to the truck, it was almost the last car in the lot. It seemed like a haven, already the closest thing to home I had in this damp green hole. I sat inside for a while, just staring out the windshield blankly. But soon I was cold enough to need the heater, so I turned the key and the engine roared to life. I headed back to Charlie's house, fighting tears the whole way there.**

"That's it," Alice announced, marking her place in the book. "Who's reading next?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

"I'll go," Emmett volunteered enthusiastically, picking up the book titled _Midnight Sun_ and opening it up.

/=/=/ ~L N~ /=/=/

Disclaimer: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn & Midnight Sun ©2005 – 2008 Stephenie Meyer. Stephenie Meyer owns the characters from her series. I own this story and the character's actions/comments.


	3. Midnight Sun – First Sight

**3. Midnight Sun – First Sight**

"This one has the same chapter number and title as Bella's book," Emmett announced before continuing.

**This was the time of day when I wished I were able to sleep.**

"You can't sleep?" Charlie asked, unnerved.

"No, we can't," Edward replied simply.

**High school.**

**Or was purgatory the right word?**

"Purgatory sounds like a fairly accurate description," Rosalie grumbled. Emmett and Alice nodded in agreement.

"At least, until Bella arrived and livened things up," Emmett added cheerfully.

"Closer to hell for me," Jasper muttered and Alice stroked his arm soothingly.

**If there ****_was_**** any way to atone for my sins, this ought to count toward the tally in some measure. The tedium was not something I grew used to. Every day seemed more impossibly monotonous than the last. **

**I suppose this ****_was_**** my form of sleep—if sleep was defined as the inert state between active periods. **

**I stared at the cracks running through the plaster in the far corner of the cafeteria, imagining patterns into them that were not there. It was one way to tune out the voices that babbled like the gush of a river inside my head.**

**Several hundred of these voices I ignored out of boredom.**

**When it came to the human mind, I'd heard it all before and then some. Today, all thoughts were consumed with the trivial drama of a new addition to the small student body here. It took so little to work them all up. I'd seen the new face repeated in thought after thought from every angle. Just an ordinary human girl.**

"Really?" Bella asked skeptically, remembering all the times he'd told her she was the opposite of ordinary.

"Well, how was I supposed to know then that you are the opposite of ordinary? All I had to go on at that point were what the humans around me thought of you."

**The excitement over her arrival was tiresomely predictable—like flashing a shiny object at a child. Half the sheep-like males were already imagining themselves in love with her, just because she was something new to look at.**

Bella grimaced at the focus of the other students on her that day. The attention from them had been bad enough from her perspective, but so much worse through his.

**I tried hard to tune them out.**

**Only four voices did I block out of courtesy rather than distaste: my family, my two brothers and two sisters, who were so used to the lack of privacy in my presence that they rarely gave it a thought. I gave them what privacy I could. I tried not to listen if I could help it.**

"Really?" Rosalie remarked. "I never knew that."

Edward looked knowingly at his temperamental sister. "Would you have believed me if I told you?" he asked her.

"Probably not," she agreed, laughing.

**Try as I might, I still knew.**

**Rosalie was thinking, as usual, about herself. She'd caught sight of her profile in the reflection off someone's glasses, and she was mulling over her own perfection. Rosalie's mind was a shallow pool with few surprises.**

Rosalie scowled at Edward's perception of her before shrugging. It was true in a way. She knew how vain and shallow she was and didn't pretend otherwise. Still, there was more to her than what showed on the surface; she just rarely showed that side of herself to anyone besides Emmett.

**Emmett was fuming over a wrestling match he'd lost to Jasper during the night. It would take all his limited patience to make it to the end of the school day to orchestrate a rematch. I never really felt intrusive hearing Emmett's thoughts because he never thought one thing that he would not say aloud or put into action. Perhaps I only felt guilty reading the others' minds because I knew there were things there that they wouldn't want me to know. If Rosalie's mind was a shallow pool, then Emmett's was a lake with no shadows, glass clear.**

**And Jasper was…suffering. I suppressed a sigh.**

Esme stood and walked over to Jasper, sending him as much comfort as she could. "I'm sorry, son," she consoled.

He smiled reassuringly back at her but didn't say anything. It's not as if it was okay. It's just part of the way life was for him.

**_Edward._**** Alice called my name in her head and had my attention at once.**

**It was just the same as having my name called aloud. I was glad my given name had fallen out of style lately. It had been annoying before when anyone thought of any Edward, my head would turn automatically.**

"I can see how that could be a bit frustrating," Charlie chuckled.

**My head didn't turn now. Alice and I were good at these private conversations. It was rare that anyone caught us.**

"Ha," Emmett laughed. "Now we get to learn all your secrets. You two will have to come up with something new now!"

Edward and Alice rolled their eyes. Emmett and Rosalie were always so wrapped up in each other or their own interests that they would hardly ever pay them much attention, no matter if they knew Edward and Alice were communicating silently or not.

**I kept my eyes on the lines in the plaster.**

**_How is he holding up?_**** she asked me.**

"Keeping tabs on me?" Jasper asked, aggravated.

"Sorry," Alice apologized, contrite. "I just wanted to make sure. You'd never gone so long before."

Jasper nodded. "I suppose I should be thankful. I guess it's better to monitored than to have something happen that I would regret later."

Charlie frowned at the implication of their discussion, trying very hard _not_ to understand.

**I frowned, just a small change in the set of my mouth. Nothing that would tip the others off. I could easily be frowning out of boredom.**

**Alice's mental tone was alarmed now, and I saw in her mind that she was watching Jasper in her peripheral vision. ****_Is there any danger?_**** She searched ahead, into the immediate future, skimming through visions of monotony for the source behind my frown.**

"Visions?" Charlie asked, despite himself, hoping for a bit more clarification. _Was she some kind of psychic?_

"Alice can see visions of the future," Edward explained. "They're subjective, mostly dependent on decisions. Some things, like the weather, are definite, while other things can change when people change their minds."

Charlie nodded, feeling a bit overwhelmed, and put this bit of new knowledge to the back of his mind for now. When he had some time to himself, he could think more in-depth about everything he'd learned this day.

**I turned my head slowly to the left, as if looking at the bricks of the wall, sighed, and then to the right, back to the cracks in the ceiling. Only Alice knew I was shaking my head.**

**She relaxed. ****_Let me know if it gets too bad._**

**I moved only my eyes, up to the ceiling above, and back down.**

**_Thanks for doing this._**

**I was glad I couldn't answer her aloud. What would I say? "My pleasure?" It was hardly that. I didn't enjoy listening to Jasper's struggles. Was it really necessary to experiment like this? Wouldn't the safer path be to just admit that he might never be able to handle the thirst the way the rest of us could—and not push his limits?**

Jasper grimaced and wondered if his brother was right. He didn't want the others to feel like they had to worry about him all the time, yet he hated the idea of being weaker than everyone else. Would it really be best if he acknowledged that he'd already reached his limits and didn't push himself further? "How did you do it, Ed?" he asked finally.

"What do you mean?"

Jasper gestured to Bella, currently cuddled against Edward's side, wrapped in a blanket, with Edward's arm around her, holding her close. "You obviously pushed your limits. How?"

"Well, a large part of my resistance to Bella now is due to my feelings for her. Other than that, I've worked to desensitize myself to her scent. Despite the pain, I force myself to inhale her scent as much as possible until I get to the point that it's barely noticeable. Even so, I was still worried that an accident could occur, until yesterday. That's when I realized that my mind is stronger than my body. If I ever feel close to losing control again, I'm sure I can leave until I've regained control once again."

Bella scowled at that. She really hated it whenever he talked about leaving, even if it was just temporarily, in order to protect her. She'd also have to ask him about this pain he mentioned. She knew that resisting her blood was beyond difficult for him, but was it physically painful as well?

**Why flirt with disaster?**

**It had been two weeks since our last hunting trip. **

"Would it have been any different if I had arrived two weeks earlier, shortly after you'd hunted?" Bella asked curiously.

"I don't think so," Edward said after a moment, thinking carefully about her question. "I still wouldn't have been prepared for the shock of it. Your scent was still just as strong, just as overpowering, when I came back from Alaska, even though I had hunted a lot in preparation for it. But, since I was prepared, since I knew what to expect, I was able to control my reactions better."

**That was not an immensely difficult time span for the rest of us. A little uncomfortable occasionally—if a human walked too close, if the wind blew the wrong way. But humans rarely walked too close. Their instincts told them what their conscious minds would never understand: We were dangerous.**

**Jasper was very dangerous right now.**

**At that moment, a small girl paused at the end of the closest table to ours, stopping to talk to a friend. She tossed her short, sandy hair, running her fingers through it. The heaters blew her scent in our direction. I was used to the way that scent made me feel: the dry ache in my throat, the hollow yearn in my stomach, the automatic tightening of my muscles, the excess flow of venom in my mouth…**

Bella perked up in interest. She was eager to learn all she could about vampires, Edward in particular, of course. "Venom?" she wondered aloud. _Like with a snake?_ she thought silently.

Edward grimaced. This was the last thing he wanted Bella to have knowledge of, but he supposed it was probably inevitable with these books. He nodded minutely to Carlisle's questioning look, who took up the explanation to Bella and Charlie.

"Yes, Bella, we have venom. The venom in itself is not lethal, but it is incapacitating. It's indescribably painful, so much so that anyone bitten by a vampire cannot do more than writhe in agony, feeling like they are burning alive."

Edward wanted him to stop with his explanation right there but Carlisle continued, ignoring Edward's warning growl.

"It's the venom that begins the change. If a vampire stops feeding while the human's heart is still beating, the venom will spread throughout the body, changing it slowly. The process usually lasts three days."

Bella considered that for a moment and shuddered at the thought of everyone in the room, besides her and Charlie, of course, having to endure that. "Thank you for explaining," she told him solemnly, gesturing for Emmett to continue.

**This was all quite normal, usually easy to ignore. It was harder just now, with the feelings stronger, doubled, as I monitored Jasper's reaction. Twin thirsts, rather than just mine.**

The vampires' eyes widened in shock; they had been unaware of this information previously. "Oh, Edward," Alice exclaimed, "is it always like that?"

"Yes," he replied, swallowing hard at the thought.

"I'm sorry," she apologized guiltily. "I wouldn't have asked you to do that if I had known."

"I know. Don't worry about it. If I couldn't handle it, I would have refused."

"I wonder," Carlisle mused, "if this is limited to you."

"How do you mean?" Edward asked, since Carlisle's thoughts were not clear.

"You just admitted that your thirst is doubled if you hear one of us struggling with ours in our thoughts. I just wondered if Jasper is affected similarly, if _his_ thirst is doubled if he 'feels' the thirst of someone else. Jasper, have you noticed if your struggle is worse when you are with one of your brothers or sisters than when you are alone?"

"I never really thought about it," Jasper replied, surprised yet thoughtful. "It's bad all the time; I don't think I've noticed if it's worse or not when I'm with the others."

"You might want to pay attention in the future, son," Carlisle advised. "If it is worse around the rest us, if we're aware, there may be a way to help you. You may be a lot stronger than you think and you don't realize it."

**Jasper was letting his imagination get away from him. He was picturing it, picturing himself getting up from his seat next to Alice and going to stand beside the little girl. Thinking of leaning down and in, as if he were going to whisper in her ear, and letting his lips touch the arch of her throat. Imagining how the hot flow of her pulse beneath the fine skin would feel under his mouth…**

Jasper shut his eyes and grimaced. Even hearing his own thoughts tested his control again as it brought the crystal clear memory to the forefront of his mind. He concentrated on Carlisle's recent words to him, though, and pushed the desire back, refocusing his attention back to the group.

Charlie grimaced in revulsion at those thoughts. It just reinforced just how inhuman they really were.

Edward noticed. "Brace yourself, Charlie," he said shamefully. "Soon, my thoughts will be much, much worse than this."

Bella looked from Edward to her father, taking in her father's expression. "They may have those thoughts, Dad—after all, it's in their nature—but at least they don't act on them," Bella defended fiercely. "That's more than you can say about some humans."

Charlie nodded reluctantly, allowing that.

At the same time, Carlisle and Esme smiled quietly at each other, recognizing Bella's words as something more… defense of her mate against a potentially hostile party. Before reading these books, they hadn't been positive that Bella and Edward were actually a mated pair. They had hoped, of course, but weren't sure, in no small part due to Edward's erratic behavior the past couple of months. With the other couples in the family, their own relationship excluded due to Carlisle's departure not long after setting Esme's broken leg when she was sixteen, the bond had been formed right away and hadn't been denied. Even their own relationship, when they were back together again, after Carlisle had changed Esme, had followed the same pattern. Edward's persistent avoidance of Bella for so long had caused them to doubt that they were true mates but they could now, quite happily, see that they were wrong in that assessment.

**I kicked his chair.**

**He met my gaze for a minute, and then looked down. I could hear shame and rebellion war in his head.**

**"Sorry," Jasper muttered. **

**I shrugged. **

**"You weren't going to do anything," Alice murmured to him, soothing his chagrin. "I could see that." **

**I fought back the grimace that would give her lie away. We had to stick together, Alice and I. It wasn't easy, hearing voices or seeing visions of the future. Both freaks among those who were already freaks. We protected each other's secrets.**

**"It helps a little if you think of them as people," Alice suggested, her high, musical voice too fast for human ears to understand, if any had been close enough to hear. "Her name is Whitney. She has a baby sister she adores. Her mother invited Esme to that garden party, do you remember?"**

**"I know who she is," Jasper said curtly. He turned away to stare out one of the small windows that were spaced just under the eaves around the long room. His tone ended the conversation. **

**He would have to hunt tonight. It was ridiculous to take risks like this, trying to test his strength, to build his endurance. Jasper should just accept his limitations and work within them. **

**His former habits were not conducive to our chosen lifestyle; he shouldn't push himself in this way.**

"Former habits?" Charlie interrupted suspiciously.

"It's what you think, Charlie," Edward stated. "In Jasper's defense, for most of his life he was unaware that there was any other way to live. His sire, the vampire who changed him, is a traditional vampire in the worst sense and he lived with her for several decades. You should know that, despite his struggles, he's been true to our diet since he's learned it was possible."

Charlie nodded, looking askance at the blond vampire in question before pondering everything he'd learned so far today. While intellectually he knew that the vampires were supposedly safe and only hunted animals, the knowledge that they had probably all killed people in the past was hard to stomach. Putting his personal feelings and concerns for Bella aside, he looked at the situation objectively, as an officer of the law.

If he tried to think of them as ex-cons that had already paid for their crimes, he could accept them as reformed individuals. After all, in the two years that they had lived in Forks, there had not been any suspicious deaths or disappearances in the region or anywhere nearby. He remembered how vehemently he had defended them to Bella, not to mention the Quileutes. Before today, they had earned his trust and he would give them the benefit of the doubt for now, no matter how difficult hearing about their past misdeeds was. Knowing _what_ they are shouldn't change his opinion of _who_ they are unless he learned a reason they couldn't be trusted.

**Alice sighed silently and stood, taking her tray of food—her prop, as it were—with her and leaving him alone. She knew when he'd had enough of her encouragement. Though Rosalie and Emmett were more flagrant about their relationship, it was Alice and Jasper who knew each other's every mood as well as their own. As if they could read minds, too, only just each other's.**

**_Edward Cullen._**

**Reflex reaction. I turned to the sound of my name being called, though it wasn't being called, just thought.**

**My eyes locked for a small portion of a second with a pair of wide, chocolate-brown human eyes set in a pale, heart-shaped face. I knew the face though I'd never seen it myself before this moment. It had been foremost in every human head today. The new student, Isabella Swan. Daughter of the town's chief of police, brought to live here by some new custody situation. Bella. She'd corrected everyone who'd used her full name.**

"Gee, Eddie," Emmett remarked, chuckling, "for someone who professed not to be interested in her at that point, you sure did pick up a lot of details."

"I already said that nearly everyone was thinking of her," Edward replied, straight-faced and defiant, but Jasper was able to detect a trace of embarrassment as well.

"Yeah, but you also said you were blocking the voices. If you were really as uninterested as you claim, you could have blocked out all those little details, right?"

Soon, Edward capitulated to Emmett's thoughts more than his words. "Alright! I was interested in her from the very beginning and I didn't realize it. Happy?"

"Ecstatic," Emmett snickered. "It's so good to have you be the last to know something for once!"

**I looked away, bored.**

"Yeah, right," Emmett snorted. "I can also see that you're already lying to yourself. Bored, Edward? Since when has Bella ever caused you boredom?"

Edward scowled at his burly brother. They all already knew how hard he'd tried to ignore and avoid Bella; Emmett didn't have to rub his failure into his face.

**It took me a second to realize that she had not been the one to think my name. **

**_Of course she's already crushing on the Cullens,_**** the first thought continued.**

**Now I recognized the 'voice.' Jessica Stanley. It had been a while since she'd bothered me with her internal chatter. What a relief it had been when she'd gotten over her misplaced infatuation. It used to be nearly impossible to escape her constant, ridiculous daydreams. I had wished at the time that I could explain to her exactly what would have happened if my lips, and the teeth behind them, had gotten anywhere near her.**

"You don't seem to have too many problems doing that with me," Bella whispered as Edward leaned in and kissed the top of her head.

"Yes, well, that's because I love you, Bella. My emotions are strong enough to curb my instincts. Jessica wouldn't have had that advantage."

**That would have silenced those annoying fantasies. The thought of her reaction almost made me smile. **

**_Fat lot of good it will do her, _****Jessica went on.****_ She's really not even pretty. I don't know why Eric is staring so much…or Mike._**

"She really thought those things?" Bella asked sadly. "I mean, I already guessed she liked me more because of all the people who wanted to be my friends, but I still thought she liked me too, even just a little bit."

"I'm sorry, love," Edward said, "but I've rarely heard any genuine friendship from her thoughts. If someone can't help advance her social status she doesn't have much use for them."

**She winced mentally on the last name. Her new infatuation, the generically popular Mike Newton was completely oblivious to her. Apparently, he was not as oblivious to the new girl. Like the child with the shiny object again. This put a mean edge to Jessica's thoughts, though she was outwardly cordial to the newcomer as she explained to her the commonly held knowledge about my family. The new student must have asked about us. **

**_Everyone's looking at me today, too, _****Jessica thought smugly in an aside. ****_Isn't it lucky Bella had two classes with me? I'll bet Mike will want to ask me what she's—_**

**I tried to block the inane chatter out of my head before the petty and the trivial could drive me mad.**

"Too late," Emmett sniggered.

"Emmett, be nice," Esme admonished.

**"Jessica Stanley is giving the new Swan girl all the dirty laundry on the Cullen clan," I murmured to Emmett as a distraction. **

**He chuckled under his breath. ****_I hope she's making it good,_**** he thought. **

**"Rather unimaginative, actually. Just the barest hint of scandal. Not an ounce of horror. I'm a little disappointed." **

**_And the new girl? Is she disappointed in the gossip as well? _**

**I listened to hear what this Bella thought of Jessica's story. What did she see when she looked at the strange, chalky-skinned family that was universally avoided?**

"Well, now we all know," Carlisle offered, pleased with his new knowledge.

**It was sort of my responsibility to know her reaction. I acted as a lookout, for lack of a better word, for my family. To protect us. If anyone ever grew suspicious, I could give us early warning and an easy retreat. It happened occasionally. Some human with an active imagination would see in us the characters of a book or a movie. Usually they got it wrong, but it was better to move on somewhere new than to risk scrutiny. Very, very rarely, someone would guess right. We didn't give them a chance to test their hypothesis. We simply disappeared, becoming no more than a frightening memory… **

**I heard nothing though I listened close beside where Jessica's frivolous internal monologue continued to gush. It was as if there was no one sitting beside her. How peculiar. Had the girl moved? That didn't seem likely, as Jessica was still babbling to her. I looked up to check, feeling off-balance. Checking on what my extra 'hearing' could tell me—that wasn't something I ever had to do.**

**Again, my gaze locked on those same wide brown eyes. She was sitting right where she had been before and looking at us, a natural thing to be doing, I supposed, as Jessica was still regaling her with the local gossip about the Cullens.**

**Thinking about us, too, would be natural.**

**But I couldn't hear a whisper.**

"Ah, poor Eddie, his world's been turned upside down," Emmett teased.

"Yes, it has." He smiled down at Bella before adding, "But I wouldn't have it any other way."

**Inviting warm red stained her cheeks as she looked down, away from the embarrassing gaffe of getting caught staring at a stranger. It was good that Jasper was still gazing out the window. I didn't like to imagine what that easy pooling of blood would do to his control.**

"Why would I have noticed her, even if I'd been looking in that direction?" Jasper asked incredulously. "Give me at least a _little_ credit! She was across the cafeteria, not next to us. You were the only one fixated on her over every other human in the school."

Edward shrugged at that. It was embarrassingly obvious how fascinated he had been with Bella from the start, even before he first caught her scent in the biology classroom, yet he hadn't realized his own feelings until much later.

**The emotions had been as clear on her face as if they were spelled out in words across her forehead: **

Bella frowned. "I told you my face is easy to read," she grumbled.

"And I am immensely grateful for that," Edward stated. "If your face was as closed off as your mind… I don't even want to contemplate that. Being able to read your face and eyes is the only thing that helps not being able to read your mind."

**surprise, as she unknowingly absorbed the signs of the subtle differences between her kind and mine; curiosity, as she listened to Jessica's tale; and something more…fascination? It wouldn't be the first time. We were beautiful to them, our intended prey. Then, finally, embarrassment, as I caught her staring at me. **

**And yet, though her thoughts had been so clear in her odd eyes—odd, because brown eyes often seemed flat in their darkness—I could hear nothing but silence from the place she was sitting. Nothing at all. **

**I felt a moment of unease. **

**This was nothing I'd ever encountered before. Was there something wrong with me? **

"Wrong with you? Really, Edward, why would you assume it was you?" Alice asked.

"It had never happened before. What was I supposed to think? What would _you_ think if, all of a sudden, you weren't able to see someone's future?"

"I guess," she conceded, "although I think I might try to find some other explanation first. Like perhaps the person has a latent gift or something. What do you think, Eleazar?"

"Oh, she's definitely gifted alright," Eleazar agreed. "I can't see it very well, though—she's blocking me, too—but I'm fairly certain that she's a shield, a rather powerful one at that, considering how strongly her gift is manifesting itself while she's human."

"A shield?" Bella inquired. "What does that mean?"

"Well, Bella," Eleazar replied, "I _think_ it means that you have a special ability to block, or _shield_, yourself from certain vampire talents. It's hard to say exactly what you can shield against, but the fact that you can shield yourself at all, as completely as you do, leads me to believe it's an extremely powerful latent ability."

"Wow," Bella said, stunned, trying to wrap her mind around the concept that she had a "super-power." She was just plain, ordinary Bella Swan. That was the person she knew. According to her new vampire friends – or maybe even family, she thought hopefully – she had the potential to be so much more. "I wonder if we'll learn anything about this in the books," she mused.

"It's entirely possible," Carlisle said, excited to expand his knowledge, as always. "After all, the letter did say that these books would include information on our lives in this alternate future for the next two years. And, judging by the size of the books, there is a lot of information there. Continue, please, Emmett."

**I felt exactly the same as I always did. Worried, I listened harder. **

**All the voices I'd been blocking were suddenly shouting in my head. **

**_…wonder what music she likes…maybe I could mention that new CD…_**** Mike Newton was thinking, two tables away—fixated on Bella Swan. **

**_Look at him staring at her. Isn't it enough that he has half the girls in school waiting for him to… _****Eric Yorkie was thinking sulfurous thoughts, also revolving around the girl.**

"Ugh," Bella groaned. "I really need to do something to deter their attention … Maybe now that you're not afraid to touch me," she whispered to Edward, "_we_ can deter them, and then they can go annoy some other girl."

Edward smiled back at her, liking the idea of claiming Bella as his before the boys in school, especially Newton.

**_…so disgusting. You'd think she was famous or something…Even Edward Cullen, staring…_**** Lauren Mallory was so jealous that her face, by all rights, should be dark jade in color. ****_And Jessica, flaunting her new best friend. What a joke… _****Vitriol continued to spew from the girl's thoughts.**

"Wow, Lauren's thoughts are even worse than what she says aloud," Bella mused.

"Jealousy is an ugly emotion," Edward said.

"You should know, hey, bro?" Emmett smirked, laughing as Edward growled back at him in response.

**_…I bet everyone has asked her that. But I'd like to talk to her. I'll think of a more original question…_**** Ashley Dowling mused. **

**_…maybe she'll be in my Spanish…_**** June Richardson hoped.**

**_…tons left to do tonight! Trig, and the English test. I hope Mom…_**** Angela Weber, a quiet girl, whose thoughts were unusually kind, was the only one at the table who wasn't obsessed with this Bella.**

"I like Angela," Bella announced succinctly.

"So do I," Edward agreed. "She has a very kind mind, and I often retreat into her thoughts when I can't stand the others coming into my head."

**I could hear them all, every insignificant thing they were thinking as it passed through their minds. But nothing at all from the new student with the deceptively communicative eyes. **

**And, of course, I could hear what the girl said when she spoke to Jessica. I didn't have to read minds to be able to hear her low, clear voice on the far side of the long room. **

**"Which one is the boy with the reddish brown hair?" I heard her ask, sneaking a look at me from the corner of her eye, only to look quickly away when she saw that I was still staring.**

**If I'd had time to hope that hearing the sound of her voice would help me pinpoint the tone of her thoughts, lost somewhere where I couldn't access them, I was instantly disappointed. Usually, people's thoughts came to them in a similar pitch as their physical voices. But this quiet, shy voice was unfamiliar, not one of the hundreds of thoughts bouncing around the room, I was sure of that. Entirely new.**

**_Oh, good luck, idiot!_**** Jessica thought before answering the girl's question. **

"Okay," Bella remarked, "I think I'm really starting to dislike Jess."

**"That's Edward. He's gorgeous, of course, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. Apparently none of the girls here are good-looking enough for him." She sniffed. **

**I turned my head away to hide my smile. Jessica and her classmates had no idea how lucky they were that none of them particularly appealed to me.**

"Well, I think I am lucky that _I_ appeal to you," Bella said, smiling happily. "Okay, maybe not so much in that my blood appeals to you," she amended, "but I do feel lucky that I appeal to you in other ways as well."

Edward gazed at her bleakly. He couldn't agree. While part of him, a larger part than he wanted to admit to, was ecstatic she felt that way, the self-deprecating part of him couldn't help but feel that she was amazingly unlucky, especially considering that she reciprocated his love. There was no way they could have a happy ending together. Their love was doomed from the start.

_Oh, Edward,_ Alice sighed mentally. _If you refuse to listen to me, then listen to what you're going to learn with these books. I know everything's going to work out the end, and you're going to learn it, too. The only question is whether you're going to learn the easy way or the hard way. Something tells me that the book-you had to learn the hard way and we're all going to hear about it, in detail. Hopefully you're man enough to learn from your/his mistakes, _she jibed.

**Beneath the transient humor, I felt a strange impulse, one I did not clearly understand. It had something to do with the vicious edge to Jessica's thoughts that the new girl was unaware of…I felt the strangest urge to step in between them, to shield this Bella Swan from the darker workings of Jessica's mind. **

"Being my protector already," Bella mused. "You had that instinct long before you ever got to know me. First with being glad Jasper wasn't looking at me when I blushed, to this. Some part of you must have known from the start, since it sounds like it's not something you're used to feeling. Even if you didn't consciously acknowledge it, some part of you already knew that you loved me."

Esme and Alice smiled at each other. Bella was right; it was obvious from the start that the two of them were destined for each other. If only Edward could see it. They both hoped that these books could help him with that.

**What an odd thing to feel. Trying to ferret out the motivations behind the impulse, I examined the new girl one more time.**

**Perhaps it was just some long buried protective instinct—the strong for the weak.**

"Come on, Edward," Emmett said. "That's a pretty weak argument, no pun intended. All humans are weak compared to us. And she can't be the only delicate looking girl you've encountered in your life."

Edward looked down and, if he were human, he probably would have been blushing.

**This girl looked more fragile than her new classmates. Her skin was so translucent it was hard to believe it offered her much defense from the outside world. I could see the rhythmic pulse of blood through her veins under the clear, pale membrane…I shouldn't concentrate on that. I was good at this life I'd chosen, but I was just as thirsty as Jasper—and there was no point in inviting temptation. **

**There was a faint crease between her eyebrows that she seemed unaware of. **

**It was unbelievably frustrating! I could clearly see that it was a strain for her to sit there, to make conversation with strangers, to be the center of attention. I could sense how shy she was from the way she held her frail-looking shoulders slightly hunched, as if she was expecting a rebuff at any moment. And yet I could only sense, could only see, could only imagine. There was nothing but silence from the very unexceptional human girl. I could hear nothing. Why?**

"And now we know," Edward murmured into Bella's hair. "You're an extraordinarily _gifted_ human."

**"Shall we?" Rosalie murmured, interrupting my focus.**

**I looked away from the girl with a sense of relief. I didn't want to continue to fail at this; it irritated me. And I didn't want to develop any interest in her hidden thoughts simply because they were hidden from me. No doubt, when I did decipher her thoughts—and I would find a way to do so—they would be just as petty and trivial as any human's thoughts. Not worth the effort I would expend to reach them.**

"Well that's certainly not the truth," Edward said. "Your thoughts are just as fascinating as everything else about you. You never think what I expect, just as you never behave the way I would expect. Everything about you is unique."

Emmett chuckled as Bella blushed yet again at Edward's compliments.

"Laying it on kinda thick, aren't you, Edward?" Emmett asked below human hearing, grinning.

Edward frowned. "I'm not giving excessive, untrue compliments. With what I've learned of Bella so far, outside of these books, I can tell she needs plenty of reassurance and compliments to improve her self-esteem. She's like many other teenagers in that way," he replied, just as quietly.

**"So, is the new one afraid of us yet?" Emmett asked, still waiting for my response to his question before. **

**I shrugged. He wasn't interested enough to press for more information. Nor should I be interested.**

Emmett smirked at how dense his brother was. At the time, he couldn't understand Edward's fascination with Bella. Now, though, hearing everything through the vantage point of Edward's mind, it was obvious to him (and every other mated vampire in the room) that Edward had encountered his mate. Her being human was a minor obstacle, easily overcome.

**We got up from the table and walked out of the cafeteria. **

**Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper were pretending to be seniors; they left for their classes. I was playing a younger role than they. I headed off for my junior level biology class, preparing my mind for the tedium. It was doubtful Mr. Banner, a man of no more than average intellect, would manage to pull out anything in his lecture that would surprise someone holding two graduate degrees in medicine.**

"You've been to medical school?" Charlie asked, impressed, while Bella thought much the same. Edward hadn't told her this about himself yet.

"Yes. As was mentioned, I have two graduate degrees. I can't actually practice medicine for a couple reasons though. Firstly, I hadn't developed the discipline to be able to work around open wounds yet, though I might be able to now," Edward admitted, eyeing Bella. "But the other reason is my apparent age. I look far too young to be able to do much in the field, besides assist Carlisle, I suppose."

**In the classroom, I settled into my chair and let my books—props, again; they held nothing I didn't already know—spill across the table. I was the only student who had a table to himself. The humans weren't smart enough to know that they feared me, but their survival instincts were enough to keep them away.**

**The room slowly filled as they trickled in from lunch. I leaned back in my chair and waited for the time to pass. Again, I wished I was able to sleep.**

**Because I'd been thinking about her, when Angela Weber escorted the new girl through the door, her name intruded on my attention.**

**_Bella seems just as shy as me. I'll bet today is really hard for her. I wish I could say something…but it would probably just sound stupid… _**

**_Yes!_****Mike Newton thought, turning in his seat to watch the girls enter.**

Edward growled while his brothers and sisters smirked at his reaction.

**Still, from the place where Bella Swan stood, nothing. The empty space where her thoughts should be irritated and unnerved me. **

**She came closer, walking down the aisle beside me to get to the teacher's desk. Poor girl, the seat next to me was the only one available. Automatically, I cleared what would be her side of the desk, shoving my books into a pile.**

Esme smiled at Edward's thoughtfulness and manners, though she was also worried about Edward's perspective of what she knew was coming.

**I doubted she would feel very comfortable there. She was in for a long semester—in this class, at least. Perhaps, though, sitting beside her, I'd be able to flush out her secrets… not that I'd ever needed close proximity before…not that I would find anything worth listening to…**

**Bella Swan walked into the flow of the heated air that blew toward me from the vent.**

Although they obviously already knew what happened from Bella's perspective, all the vampires tensed minutely, waiting to hear exactly how Edward was affected by Bella's scent.

**Her scent hit me like a wrecking ball, like a battering ram. There was no image violent enough to encapsulate the force of what happened to me in that moment.**

"Just as I thought," Eleazar announced. "She's your singer. The Volturi call this phenomenon _la tua cantante_ because it's said that the call of the person's blood is so strong it sings to a specific vampire. I've never heard of a vampire resisting his, or her, singer before. And to not only resist such a strong call to your instincts, but to be so close to her," —he gestured to Edward holding Bella snugly by his side— "if I hadn't witnessed it for myself I would never have believed it possible."

**In that instant, I was nothing close to the human I'd once been; no trace of the shreds of humanity I'd managed to cloak myself in remained.**

Charlie flinched, bracing himself for what was coming. No doubt Edward's thoughts would be worse than Jasper's in the cafeteria, and those had been bad enough.

**I was a predator. She was my prey. There was nothing else in the whole world but that truth.**

**There was no room full of witnesses. They were already collateral damage in my head. The mystery of her thoughts was forgotten. Her thoughts meant nothing, for she would not go on thinking them much longer.**

**I was a vampire, and she had the sweetest blood I'd smelled in eighty years.**

"Eighty years!" Charlie bellowed, turning red. He rounded on Bella. "Did you know this, young lady?" he asked fiercely.

"Yeah," Bella replied sheepishly. "He told me yesterday. To be honest, I was prepared for him to be much older, with him being a vampire and all."

Charlie closed his eyes, muttering inaudibly to himself. Having a dangerous predator lurking around his daughter was bad enough, but now to learn that he was five times her age... His first instinct was to say enough was enough and send Bella back to Renée. This was almost too much for him to handle or understand. Just one look to his daughter, looking so happy and content next to her vampire boyfriend, even after he'd yelled, and he knew he couldn't do that, though. He was going to need some time to himself for a bit to adjust to all this.

"It was even worse with Carlisle and Esme," Edward interjected, smirking. "Carlisle was two-hundred and sixty-eight years old when he first met Esme when she was sixteen years old, though he didn't change her until ten years later."

Shocked, Charlie swung his head around and stared wide-eyed at the young-seeming doctor that he admired so much.

**I hadn't imagined such a scent could exist. If I'd known it did, I would have gone searching for it long ago. I would have combed the planet for her. I could imagine the taste…**

**Thirst burned through my throat like fire. My mouth was baked and desiccated. The fresh flow of venom did nothing to dispel that sensation. My stomach twisted with the hunger that was an echo of the thirst. My muscles coiled to spring. **

**Not a full second had passed. She was still taking the same step that had put her downwind from me. **

**As her foot touched the ground, her eyes slid toward me, a movement she clearly meant to be stealthy. Her glance met mine, and I saw myself reflected in the wide mirror of her eyes. **

**The shock of the face I saw there saved her life for a few thorny moments.**

Everyone let out a sigh of relief, though they knew it was far from over. Even knowing everything turned out alright, it was hard listening to how difficult it was at first, and how easily things could have gone terribly wrong. Emmett had an idea how difficult this was for his brother and he admired his strength of will in fighting his instincts; that was something he'd failed at when it happened to him. Every other vampire there just hoped they were never unfortunate enough to encounter their singer someday.

**She didn't make it easier. When she processed the expression on my face, blood flooded her cheeks again, turning her skin the most delicious color I'd ever seen. The scent was a thick haze in my brain. I could barely think through it. My thoughts raged, resisting control, incoherent. **

**She walked more quickly now, as if she understood the need to escape. Her haste made her clumsy; **

"I don't need haste for that," Bella sighed, "though it hardly helps."

Emmett chuckled, grateful for the break in tension. "I guess he didn't know then that you're always clumsy."

**she tripped and stumbled forward, almost falling into the girl seated in front of me. Vulnerable, weak. Even more than usual for a human. **

**I tried to focus on the face I'd seen in her eyes, a face I recognized with revulsion. The face of the monster in me—the face I'd beaten back with decades of effort and uncompromising discipline. How easily it sprang to the surface now! **

**The scent swirled around me again, scattering my thoughts and nearly propelling me out of my seat. **

**No. **

**My hand gripped under the edge of the table as I tried to hold myself in my chair. The wood was not up to the task. My hand crushed through the strut and came away with a palmful of splintered pulp, leaving the shape of my fingers carved into the remaining wood. **

**Destroy evidence. That was a fundamental rule. I quickly pulverized the edges of the shape with my fingertips, leaving nothing but a ragged hole and a pile of shavings on the floor, which I scattered with my foot.**

**Destroy evidence. Collateral damage…**

**I knew what had to happen now. The girl would have to come, sit beside me, and I would have to kill her.**

Charlie glared at him.

"I'm sorry," Edward whispered. "I wasn't able to think rationally then, with her scent filling my head. It's no excuse, I know, but it didn't feel like I had any choice then. Once I was able to get some fresh air, it was better."

"Charlie, I know this must be extremely difficult for you. It might help if you think of Edward as a drug addict," Carlisle explained. "He's resisted partaking of a drug he's addicted to for years, despite it being around him all the time. All of a sudden, the drug is available to him again; only this drug is pure, unpolluted. He doesn't want it, but his body yearns for it. His body desires the drug it's addicted to so strongly that his mind is nearly overcome by the need."

Charlie nodded. That analogy did help. He'd seen addicts before, several times, witnessed their irrational behavior and the lengths some people would go to in order to obtain the drugs they needed. Knowing this, he tried to rethink the situation in normal human terms – Edward didn't want to hurt Bella, he was resisting a drug he was badly addicted to, a forced drug addiction, at that – and his respect for Edward grew.

**The innocent bystanders in this classroom, eighteen other children and one man, could not be allowed to leave this room, having seen what they would soon see.**

**I flinched at the thought of what I must do. Even at my very worst, I had never committed this kind of atrocity. I had never killed innocents, not in over eight decades. And now I planned to slaughter twenty of them at once.**

**The face of the monster in the mirror mocked me.**

**Even as part of me shuddered away from the monster, another part was planning it.**

**If I killed the girl first, I would have only fifteen or twenty seconds with her before the humans in the room would react. Maybe a little bit longer, if at first they did not realize what I was doing. She would not have time to scream or feel pain; I would not kill her cruelly. That much I could give this stranger with her horribly desirable blood.**

**But then I would have to stop them from escaping. I wouldn't have to worry about the windows, too high up and small to provide an escape for anyone. Just the door. Block that and they were trapped.**

**It would be slower and more difficult, trying to take them all down when they were panicked and scrambling, moving in chaos. Not impossible, but there would be much more noise. Time for lots of screaming. Someone would hear… and I'd be forced to kill even more innocents in this black hour.**

Bella shivered at thought of how many people could have died that day, just because she moved to Forks. If it had been anyone but Edward, they wouldn't have had the control to stop.

**And her blood would cool, while I murdered the others.**

**The scent punished me, closing my throat with dry aching…**

**So the witnesses first, then.**

**I mapped it out in my head. I was in the middle of the room, the furthest row in the back. I would take my right side first. I could snap four or five of their necks per second, I estimated. It would not be noisy. The right side would be the lucky side; they would not see me coming. Moving around the front and back up the left side, it would take me, at most, five seconds to end every life in this room.**

Charlie couldn't imagine anything moving that fast, killing nearly twenty people in five seconds, despite seeing Alice move earlier. He paled at the thought of the massacre that could have happened. It would have been beyond thinking to lose his only child, but so many others as well… so many grieving parents. He was beyond grateful that Edward proved to have such a strong willpower to overcome his need.

**Long enough for Bella Swan to see, briefly, what was coming for her. Long enough for her to feel fear. Long enough, maybe, if shock didn't freeze her in place, for her to work up a scream. One soft scream that would not bring anyone running. **

**I took a deep breath, and the scent was a fire that raced through my dry veins, burning out from my chest to consume every better impulse that I was capable of.**

**She was just turning now. In a few seconds, she would sit down inches away from me. **

**The monster in my head smiled in anticipation. **

**Someone slammed shut a folder on my left. I didn't look up to see which doomed human it was. But the motion sent a wave of ordinary, unscented air wafting across my face.**

**For one short second, I was able to think clearly. In that precious second, I saw two faces in my head, side by side.**

**One was mine, or rather had been: the red-eyed monster **

"Red eyes?" Bella interrupted, curious as ever to learn everything she could about vampires.

"Yes," Edward replied, ashamed. "When we're first changed, or if we drink human blood, our eyes are red."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. With newborns, their bodies are still filled with their own human blood, which affects their eye color. For some reason, animal blood affects our eye color differently, so it's more of a golden-brown."

**that had killed so many people that I'd stop counting their numbers. Rationalized, justified murders. A killer of killers, a killer of other, less powerful monsters. It was a god complex—I acknowledged that—deciding who deserved a death sentence. It was a compromise with myself. I had fed on human blood, but only by the loosest definition. My victims were, in their various dark pastimes, barely more human than I was.**

"That doesn't sound so bad," Charlie allowed, thinking of all the human monsters out in the world that never get brought to any kind of justice.

"It's better than killing indiscriminately, I suppose," Edward reasoned, "but killing is still killing, no matter how justified."

**The other face was Carlisle's.**

**There was no resemblance between the two faces. They were bright day and blackest night.**

**There was no reason for there to be a resemblance. Carlisle was not my father in the basic biological sense. We shared no common features. The similarity in our coloring was a product of what we were; every vampire had the same ice pale skin. The similarity in the color of our eyes was another matter, a reflection of a mutual choice. **

**And yet, though there was no basis for a resemblance, I'd imagined that my face had begun to reflect his, to an extent, in the last seventy-odd years that I had embraced his choice and followed in his steps. My features had not changed, but it seemed to me like some of his wisdom had marked my expression, that a little of his compassion could be traced in the shape of my mouth, and hints of his patience were evident on my brow.**

"Patience," Rosalie scoffed, but Carlisle smiled at him.

**All those tiny improvements were lost in the face of the monster. In a few moments, there would be nothing left in me that would reflect the years I'd spent with my creator, my mentor, my father in all the ways that counted. My eyes would glow red as a devil's. All likeness would be lost forever.**

**In my head, Carlisle's kind eyes did not judge me. I knew that he would forgive me for this horrible act that I would do. Because he loved me. Because he thought I was better than I was. **

"You _are_ good, Edward," Carlisle maintained.

"Yes, you are," Bella agreed fervently.

Edward remained silent, still disagreeing, but knowing better than to say anything aloud.

**And he would still love me, even as I now proved him wrong.**

**Bella Swan sat down in the chair next to me, her movements stiff and awkward—with fear?—and the scent of her blood bloomed in an inexorable cloud around me.**

**I would prove my father wrong about me. The misery of this fact hurt almost as much as the fire in my throat.**

**I leaned away from her in revulsion, revolted by the monster aching to take her.**

**Why did she have to come here? Why did she have to exist? Why did she have to ruin the little peace I had in this non-life of mine? Why had this aggravating human ever been born? She would ruin me.**

"Sorry," Edward whispered into Bella's hair, taking a deep breath and inhaling her delicious aroma, feeling the pain that let him know she was alive.

Bella patted his arm reassuringly, silently letting him know that everything was fine now and there was nothing to apologize for.

**I turned my face away from her, as a sudden fierce, unreasoning hatred washed through me.**

**Who ****_was_**** this creature? Why me, why now? Why did I have to lose everything just because she happened to choose this unlikely town to appear in?**

**Why had she come here!**

**I didn't want to be the monster! I didn't want to kill this room full of harmless children! I didn't want to lose everything I'd gained in a lifetime of sacrifice and denial!**

**I wouldn't. She couldn't make me.**

"There's your stubborn streak," Tanya commented. "Not that I blame you; no wonder you were such a mess when I saw you."

Edward nodded in silent agreement.

**The scent was the problem, the hideously appealing scent of her blood. If there was only some way to resist…if only another gust of fresh air could clear my head.**

**Bella Swan shook out her long, thick, mahogany hair in my direction.**

**Was she insane? It was as if she were encouraging the monster! Taunting him.**

**There was no friendly breeze to blow the smell away from me now. All would soon be lost. **

**No, there was no helpful breeze. But I didn't ****_have_**** to breathe.**

**I stopped the flow of air through my lungs; the relief was instantaneous but incomplete. I still had the memory of the scent in my head, the taste of it on the back of my tongue. I wouldn't be able to resist even that for long. But perhaps I could resist for an hour. One hour. Just enough time to get out of this room full of victims, victims that maybe didn't have to ****_be_**** victims. If I could resist for one short hour. **

**It was an uncomfortable feeling, not breathing. My body did not need oxygen, but it went against my instincts. I relied on scent more than my other senses in times of stress. It led the way in the hunt; it was the first warning in case of danger. I did not often come across something as dangerous as I was, but self-preservation was just as strong in my kind as it was in the average human.**

Charlie shuddered at the thought, then asked the question, "What could be more dangerous than any of you?"

"Other vampires," Carlisle answered, then added thoughtfully, "or possibly werewolves, if they were to surprise or outnumber us. In a one-on-one fight, a vampire will win against a werewolf, though."

"Werewolves exist, too?"

"Yes, though they're not quite the way common literature portrays them either. There aren't many of their kind left though."

**Uncomfortable but manageable. More bearable than smelling ****_her_**** and not sinking my teeth through that fine, thin, see-through skin to the hot, wet, pulsing—**

**An hour! Just one hour. I must not think of the scent, the taste.**

**The silent girl kept her hair between us, leaning forward so that it spilled across her shoulder. I couldn't see her face, to try to read the emotions in her clear, deep eyes. Was this why she'd let her tresses fan out between us? To hide those eyes from me? Out of fear? Shyness? To keep her secrets away?**

**My former irritation at being stymied by her soundless thoughts was weak and pale in comparison to the need—and the hate—that possessed me now. For I hated this frail woman-child beside me, hated her with all the fervor with which I clung to my former self, my love of my family, my dreams of being something better than what I was. Hating her—hating how she made me feel—it helped a little. Yes, the irritation I'd felt before was weak, but it, too, helped a little. I clung to any emotion that distracted me from imagining what she would ****_taste_**** like…**

**Hate and irritation. Impatience. Would the hour never pass?**

**And when the hour ended… Then she would walk out of this room. And I would do what?**

**I could introduce myself. ****_Hello, my name is Edward Cullen. May I walk you to your next class?_**

"You were going to lure her away?" Charlie growled angrily, temporarily forgetting his earlier, positive outlook on Edward's character.

It was a rhetorical question and Edward didn't answer. He bowed his head, unable to meet anyone's eyes, ashamed of his reaction and thoughts. The other vampires understood completely, though. Even when determined not to act on their instincts, a part of their minds can't help planning and plotting scenarios to lure prey; it's part of what they are and something they've all learned to deal with over the years.

**She would say yes. It would be the polite thing to do. Even already fearing me, as I suspected she did, she would follow convention and walk beside me. It should be easy enough to lead her in the wrong direction. A spur of the forest reached out like a finger to touch the back corner of the parking lot. I could tell her I'd forgotten a book in my car…**

**Would anyone notice that I was the last person she'd been seen with? It was raining, as usual; two dark raincoats heading the wrong direction wouldn't pique too much interest, or give me away.**

**Except that I was not the only student who was aware of her today—though not as blisteringly aware as I was. Mike Newton, in particular, was conscious of every shift in her weight as she fidgeted in her chair. She was uncomfortable so close to me, just as anyone would be, just as I'd expected before her scent had destroyed all charitable concern. Mike Newton would notice if she left the classroom with me.**

**If I could last an hour, could I last two?**

**I flinched at the pain of the burning.**

Bella flinched at that too. She hated the thought of him in pain, especially because of her.

**She would go home to an empty house. Police chief Swan worked a full day. I knew his house, as I knew every house in the tiny town. His home was nestled right up against thick woods, with no close neighbors. Even if she had time to scream (which she would not) there would be no one to hear.**

**That would be the responsible way to deal with this. I'd gone seven decades without human blood. If I held my breath, I could last two hours. And when I had her alone, there would be no chance of anyone else getting hurt. ****_And no reason to rush through the experience,_**** the monster in my head agreed.**

**It was sophistry to think that by saving the nineteen humans in this room with effort and patience, I would be less of monster when I killed this innocent girl. **

**Though I hated her, I knew my hatred was unjust. I knew that what I really hated was myself. And I would hate us both so much more when she was dead.**

**I made it through the hour in this way, imagining the best ways to kill her. I tried to avoid imagining the actual ****_act_****. That might be too much for me; I might lose this battle and end up killing everyone in sight. So I planned strategy, and nothing more. It carried me through the hour.**

**Once, toward the very end, she peeked up at me through the fluid wall of her hair. I could feel the unjustified hatred burning out of me as I met her gaze; I could see the reflection of it in her frightened eyes. Blood painted her cheek before she could hide in her hair again, and I was nearly undone.**

**But the bell rang. Saved by the bell. How cliché. We were both saved. She, saved from death; I, saved for just a short time from being the nightmarish creature I feared and loathed.**

"What superb timing." Kate chuckled. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think Alice arranged it that way." She smirked at her and Alice stuck her tongue out in response, giggling.

**I couldn't walk as slowly as I should as I darted from the room. If anyone had been looking at me, they might have suspected that there was something not right about the way I moved. No one was paying attention to me. All human thoughts still swirled around the girl who was condemned to die in little more than an hour's time. **

**I hid in my car.**

**I didn't like to think of myself having to hide. How cowardly that sounded. But it was unquestionably the case now.**

**I didn't have enough discipline left to be around humans now. Focusing so much of my efforts on not killing ****_one_**** of them left me no resources to resist the others. What a waste that would be. If I were to give in to the monster, I might as well make it worth the defeat.**

**I played a CD of music that usually calmed me, but it did little for me now. **

"Claire de Lune?" Bella asked curiously.

"Yes," Edward confirmed.

**No, what helped most now was the cool, wet, clean air that drifted with the light rain through my open windows. Though I could remember the scent of Bella Swan's blood with perfect clarity, inhaling the clean air was like washing out the inside of my body from its infection.**

**I was sane again. I could think again. And I could fight again. I could fight against what I didn't want to be.**

**I didn't have to go to her home. I didn't have to kill her. Obviously, I was a rational, thinking creature, and I had a choice. There was always a choice.**

**It hadn't felt that way in the classroom. But I was away from her now. Perhaps, if I avoided her very, very carefully, there was no need for my life to change. I had things ordered the way I liked them now. Why should I let some aggravating and delicious nobody ruin that?**

**I didn't ****_have_**** to disappoint my father. I didn't have to cause my mother stress, worry, even pain. Yes, it would hurt my adopted mother, too. And Esme was so gentle, so tender and soft. Causing someone like Esme pain was truly inexcusable.**

Esme smiled over at him. "Thank you, Edward," she said kindly. "You're a good boy, despite what you think of yourself."

Edward shook his head but didn't say anything.

**How ironic that I'd wanted to protect this human girl from the paltry, toothless threat of Jessica Stanley's snide thoughts. I was the last person who would ever stand as a protector for Isabella Swan. She would never need protection from anything more than she would from me.**

"Ha," Bella laughed, smirking at him. "You were saying?"

"Obviously I was thinking prematurely," Edward sighed. "I didn't realize what a danger magnet you were yet."

**Where was Alice? Hadn't she seen me killing the Swan girl in a multitude of ways? Why hadn't she come to help—to stop me or help me clean up the evidence, whichever? Was she so absorbed with watching for trouble with Jasper that she'd missed this much more horrific possibility? **

Alice looked down, ashamed. That was exactly what she had been doing. Things could have gone very badly for her brother and future sister because she wasn't paying attention.

"It's okay, Alice," Edward assured, reading her thoughts. "We rely on you too much, sometimes. Even if you hadn't been focused on Jasper, there's no guarantee you would've seen anything."

**Was I stronger than I thought? Would I really not have done anything to the girl?**

**No. I knew that wasn't true. Alice must be concentrating on Jasper very hard.**

**I searched in the direction I knew she would be, in the small building used for English classes. It did not take me long to locate her familiar 'voice.' And I was right. Her every thought was turned to Jasper, watching his small choices with minute scrutiny.**

**I wished I could ask her advice, but at the same time, I was glad she didn't know what I was capable of. That she was unaware of the massacre I had considered in the last hour.**

**I felt a new burn through my body, the burn of shame. I didn't want any of them to know.**

"Oh, Edward, you know none of us would be ashamed of you," Alice said.

"Yeah, man," Emmett added. "You know I've been there before. All I feel is impressed that you were able to resist at all, even for a moment, let alone anything else."

"I don't think any of the rest of us could have done as well," Jasper observed, "except maybe Rose and Carlisle."

"I don't know if I could or not," Rosalie said thoughtfully. "I've managed to resist everyone I've ever come across, but none were my singer. I just hope I'm never tested that way."

**If I could avoid Bella Swan, if I could manage not to kill her—even as I thought that, the monster writhed and gnashed his teeth in frustration—then no one would have to know. If I could keep away from her scent…**

**There was no reason why I shouldn't try, at least. Make a good choice. Try to be what Carlisle thought I was.**

**The last hour of school was almost over. I decided to put my new plan into action at once. Better than sitting here in the parking lot where she might pass me and ruin my attempt. Again, I felt the unjust hatred for the girl. I hated that she had this unconscious power over me. That she could make me be something I reviled.**

**I walked swiftly—a little too swiftly, but no one saw—across the tiny campus to the office. There was no reason for Bella Swan to cross paths with me. **

"Obviously I still wasn't thinking clearly," Edward sighed. "I should've known you would have to visit the office after school."

**She would be avoided like the plague she was. **

**The office was empty except for the secretary, the one I wanted to see.**

**She didn't notice my silent entrance.**

**"Ms. Cope?"**

**The woman with the unnaturally red hair looked up and her eyes widened. It always caught them off guard, the little markers they didn't understand, no matter how many times they'd seen one of us before.**

**"Oh," she gasped, a little flustered. She smoothed her shirt. ****_Silly,_**** she thought to herself. ****_He's almost young enough to be my son. Too young to think of that way…_**

"Ha," Emmett laughed, "being hit on by the school secretary. That's rich!"

Bella scowled and possessively pulled Edward's arm closer to her. "Ew..." she hissed, disgusted. "That takes the term 'cougar' to a whole new level. Nasty!"

"Actually, love," Edward replied, smiling at her possessiveness, "I'm older than she is."

"I know that but she doesn't. She thinks you're seventeen. That makes her a cougar for even having thoughts about you like that."

**"Hello, Edward. What can I do for you?" Her eyelashes fluttered behind her thick glasses.**

**Uncomfortable. But I knew how to be charming when I wanted to be. It was easy since I was able to know instantly how any tone or gesture was taken.**

"Except with you," Edward told Bella. "But, I'm going to learn as much as possible from these books to rectify that situation," he added, smirking as Bella frowned, blushing again.

**I leaned forward, meeting her gaze as if I were staring deeply into her depthless, small brown eyes. Her thoughts were already in a flutter. This should be simple.**

**"I was wondering if you could help me with my schedule," I said in the soft voice I reserved for not scaring humans.**

**I heard the tempo of her heart increase. **

**"Of course, Edward. How can I help?" ****_Too young, too young,_**** she chanted to herself. Wrong, of course. I was older than her grandfather. But according to my driver's license, she was right.**

**"I was wondering if I could move from my biology class to a senior level science? Physics, perhaps?"**

**"Is there a problem with Mr. Banner, Edward?"**

**"Not at all, it's just that I've already studied this material…"**

"Many, many times over," bemoaned Edward.

**"In that accelerated school you all went to in Alaska, right." Her thin lips pursed as she considered this. ****_They should all be in college. I've heard the teachers complain. Perfect four point ohs, never a hesitation with a response, never a wrong answer on a test—like they've found some way to cheat in every subject. Mr. Varner would rather believe that anyone was cheating than think a student was smarter than him… I'll bet their mother tutors them…_**** "Actually, Edward, physics is pretty much full right now. Mr. Banner hates to have more than twenty-five students in a class—" **

**"I wouldn't be any trouble." **

**_Of course not. Not a perfect Cullen._**** "I know that, Edward. But there just aren't enough seats as it is…"**

**"Could I drop the class, then? I could use the period for independent study."**

**"Drop biology?" Her mouth fell open. ****_That's crazy. How hard is it to sit through a subject you already know? There must be a problem with Mr. Banner. I wonder if I should talk to Bob about it?_**** "You won't have enough credits to graduate."**

**"I'll catch up next year."**

**"Maybe you should talk to your parents about that."**

**The door opened behind me, but whoever it was did not think of me, so I ignored the arrival and concentrated on Ms. Cope.**

"I still can't believe I didn't realize it was you. I really have come to rely on my gift too much," Edward muttered, shaking his head.

**I leaned slightly closer and held my eyes a little wider. This would work better if they were gold instead of black. The blackness frightened people, as it should.**

**"Please, Ms. Cope?" I made my voice as smooth and compelling as it could be—and it could be considerably compelling. "Isn't there some other section I could switch to? I'm sure there has to be an open slot somewhere? Sixth hour biology can't be the only option…"**

**I smiled at her, careful not to flash my teeth so widely that it would scare her, letting the expression soften my face.**

**Her heart drummed faster. ****_Too young,_**** she reminded herself frantically. "Well, maybe I could talk to Bob—I mean Mr. Banner. I could see if—"**

**A second was all it took to change everything: the atmosphere in the room, my mission here, the reason I leaned toward the red-haired woman… What had been for one purpose before was now for another.**

Charlie tensed as he remembered the look Edward would give Bella soon, apparently worse than what happened in the classroom, as it was strong enough to cause fear in Bella for the first time.

**A second was all it took for Samantha Wells to open the door and place a signed tardy slip in the basket by the door, and hurry out again, in a rush to be away from school. A second was all it took for the sudden gust of wind through the open door to crash into me. A second was all it took for me to realize why that first person through the door had not interrupted me with her thoughts.**

**I turned though I did not need to make sure. I turned slowly, fighting to control the muscles that rebelled against me.**

**Bella Swan stood with her back pressed to the wall beside the door, a piece of paper clutched in her hands. Her eyes were even wider than usual as she took in my ferocious, inhuman glare. **

**The smell of her blood saturated every particle of air in the tiny, hot room. My throat burst into flames.**

**The monster glared back at me from the mirror of her eyes again, a mask of evil.**

**My hand hesitated in the air above the counter. I would not have to look back in order to reach across it and slam Ms. Cope's head into her desk with enough force to kill her. Two lives, rather than twenty. A trade.**

Bella shivered again at the thought of how closely she'd come to being inadvertently responsible for Ms. Cope's death.

**The monster waited anxiously, hungrily, for me to do it.**

**But there was always a choice—there had to be.**

**I cut off the motion of my lungs and fixed Carlisle's face in front of my eyes. **

Carlisle smiled at that. "I'm glad I can be a source of strength for you, son. Still, you should remember that your strength comes from within, no matter how you access it."

**I turned back to face Ms. Cope and heard her internal surprise at the change in my expression. She shrank away from me, but her fear did not form into coherent words.**

**Using all the control I'd mastered in my decades of self-denial, I made my voice even and smooth. There was just enough air left in my lungs to speak once more, rushing through the words.**

**"Never mind, then. I can see that it's impossible. Thank you so much for your help."**

**I spun and launched myself from the room, trying not to feel the warm-blooded heat of the girl's body as I passed within inches of it.**

**I didn't stop until I was in my car, moving too fast the entire way there. Most of the humans had cleared out already, so there weren't a lot of witnesses. I heard a sophomore, D.J. Garrett, notice, and then disregard…**

**_Where did Cullen come from—it was like he just came out of thin air… There I go, with the imagination again. Mom always says…_**

"See," Edward told Bella. "That's the way a human is _supposed_ to react."

"But I'm not normal, you've said it yourself enough times," Bella replied, smirking at him.

**When I slid into my Volvo, the others were already there. I tried to control my breathing, but I was gasping at the fresh air like I'd been suffocated.**

**"Edward?" Alice asked, alarm in her voice.**

**I just shook my head at her.**

**"What the hell happened to you?" Emmett demanded, distracted, for the moment, from the fact that Jasper was not in the mood for his rematch.**

**Instead of answering, I threw the car into reverse. I had to get out of this lot before Bella Swan could follow me here, too. My own personal demon, haunting me… I swung the car around and accelerated. I hit 40 mph before I was on the road. On the road, I hit 70 mph before I made the corner.**

Charlie frowned at the speeds mentioned before shrugging it aside; he was glad that Edward took the initiative to rush _away_ from Bella rather than following her home.

Bella sulked, glaring at Edward. "What is it with you and speeding?" she complained.

**Without looking, I knew that Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper had all turned to stare at Alice. She shrugged. She couldn't see what had passed, only what was coming.**

**She looked ahead for me now. We both processed what she saw in her head, and we were both surprised.**

**"You're leaving?" she whispered.**

"How could she see you leaving if you didn't even know?" Bella wondered aloud. "I thought you said her visions were based on decisions."

"They are. I must have made a subconscious decision to leave and didn't realize it. After all, I had already made a _conscious_ decision to try to avoid you. Since I was unsuccessful there, leaving was a logical next choice."

**The others stared at me now.**

**"Am I?" I hissed through my teeth.**

**She saw it then, as my resolve wavered and another choice spun my future in a darker direction.**

**"Oh."**

**Bella Swan, dead. My eyes, glowing crimson with fresh blood. The search that would follow. The careful time we would wait before it was safe for us to pull out and start again…**

**"Oh," she said again. The picture grew more specific. I saw the inside of Chief Swan's house for the first time, saw Bella in a small kitchen with the yellow cupboards, her back to me as I stalked her from the shadows… let the scent pull me toward her…**

Charlie paled. "You got that close?" he choked out.

"I'm sorry," Edward apologized again. "Of course I never stalked her like that," —_though I did in other ways, _he thought to himself— "but the possibility was real enough for Alice to have visions of it. I'm ashamed to say that nothing's been definite until a few weeks ago, when I finally realized I was in love with her. Even so, there was always a possibility that I could lose control accidentally, until yesterday…"

**"Stop!" I groaned, not able to bear more.**

**"Sorry," she whispered, her eyes wide.**

**The monster rejoiced.**

**And the vision in her head shifted again. An empty highway at night, the trees beside it coated in snow, flashing by at almost two hundred miles per hour.**

**"I'll miss you," she said. "No matter how short a time you're gone."**

**Emmett and Rosalie exchanged an apprehensive glance.**

**We were almost to the turn off onto the long drive that led to our home.**

**"Drop us here," Alice instructed. "You should tell Carlisle yourself."**

**I nodded, and the car squealed to a sudden stop.**

**Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper got out in silence; they would make Alice explain when I was gone. Alice touched my shoulder.**

**"You will do the right thing," she murmured. Not a vision this time—an order. "She's Charlie Swan's only family. It would kill him, too."**

"Why would you care?" Charlie asked gruffly.

"We care," Alice answered softly. "We may not be human, but we were once and we care about people. Sometimes it may not seem so to you, but we wouldn't live as we do if we didn't care about the welfare of humans."

**"Yes," I said, agreeing only with the last part.**

**She slid out to join the others, her eyebrows pulling together in anxiety. They melted into woods, out of sight before I could turn the car around.**

**I accelerated back toward town, and I knew the visions in Alice's head would be flashing from dark to bright like a strobe light. As I sped back to Forks doing 90 mph, I wasn't sure where I was going. To say goodbye to my father? Or to embrace the monster inside me? The road flew away beneath my tires.**

"That's it," Emmett declared.

"Finally," Edward sighed. "That should be the worst, in that respect at least."

"Really?" Charlie asked, looking over at him hopefully.

"Yes. I still struggle later, but it's not as bad as this first day was."

Charlie looked relieved, his body relaxing into his seat.

Emmett turned the next page of the book. "Looks like the next chapter is called _Open Book_," he said then picked up _Twilight_ and looked in it briefly as well. "Got the same chapter title here. Who wants to go next?"

"I will," Edward volunteered. "This should be a reasonably 'safe' chapter. I'm reading from Bella's perspective, though. I already know mine."

/=/=/ ~L N~ /=/=/

Disclaimer: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn & Midnight Sun ©2005 – 2008 Stephenie Meyer. Stephenie Meyer owns the characters from her series. I own this story and the character's actions/comments.

To read _Midnight Sun_, go to stepheniemeyer|.|com/ pdf/midnightsun_partial_draft4|.|pdf (remove vertical lines around periods).


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